Emilia folded her arms and stared down at the child. “It’s Elfgifa, all right.” She grinned and pinched her cheek and said to the child, “Fat is the word you want.”
Elfgifa looked annoyed. “My father says ‘fat’ isn’t nice,” she insisted. “Stout.”
Emilia gave a whoop of laughter. “My brother’s daughter in everything. He’s always twitting me about my girth. Happens whenever I see him, though that hasn’t been for a few years now. God bless him. I tell him I’m not one to confuse piety with misery. My ladies in the convent spend their time in works of holy charity. We care for orphans, visit the sick, and feed and shelter those pilgrims that come to our door. Believe you me, a girl who’s spent her night in sleepless vigil beside the bed of a dying man, or a long day supervising the education of a bunch of active youngsters doesn’t need to come to the table and find a bowl of thin gruel and a few slices of black bread. We laborers in Christ’s vineyards need to keep up our strength.”
“I’m sure you do,” Augusta murmured. “Now, as for the child …”
Elfgifa spun around and looked at Regeane accusingly. “You’re going to send me away, aren’t you?” Then she ran toward Regeane and threw herself into her arms.
Regeane clasped her and lifted her up, setting her on her hip. Elfgifa wrapped her arms around Regeane’s neck and rested her cheek against hers.
For a moment Regeane was simply overwhelmed with love. She trembled with its intensity. “Don’t you want to go home? Your Aunt Emilia will take good care of you until your father can come get you. She’s a kind woman, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” Elfgifa said, “but she makes me study my letters. And she lectures me all the time about right and wrong. If I sneak off to play, she acts like I committed a sin, and she thinks I should work in the kitchen and scrub the pots. She won’t let me climb trees and I have to stay inside when it rains. She nags, ‘Stand up straight or you’ll get a hump in your back.’ ‘Don’t get your dress dirty.’ My father says if you wear clothes they’re supposed to get dirty and—”
Lucilla clapped her hands, bringing Elfgifa’s tirade to an end. “Headstrong should have been your name, not Elfgifa. Regeane loves you. Try not to give her any more pain than you have to. Besides, a little work and discipline will do you good. Quickly enough you’ll be returned to your father and allowed to run wild as usual.”
“Oh, heavens,” Emilia said, throwing up her arms. “It’s true. He treats the child more like one of those wayward men of his. He treats her as though her thoughts and opinions mattered.”
“That’s because they do,” Lucilla snapped. “She is the daughter of a thane, is she not? At the very least she’ll become the mistress of a large household.”
Emilia looked flustered for a moment, then gave Lucilla a quick smile. “I’ve never heard it put quite that way, but yes, I suppose you’re right.”
Lucilla spoke then to Elfgifa. “Regeane is sending you with Emilia because it’s … at present, a lot safer. She loves you and wants what’s best for you.”
The child threw her head back and her deep, blue eyes looked sadly at Regeane.
Regeane’s free hand stroked the soft curls at the back of Elfgifa’s neck. “I want you to be happy and to preserve you from harm, little one,” Regeane said in a very low voice to her, “and you wouldn’t be either happy or safe with me. I want to see you with people who love you and can care for you properly.” She shook her head. “Circumstances …” Words failed her for a moment and her eyes filled with tears. “Circumstances being what they are, I can’t.”
Elfgifa stared at Regeane solemnly for a moment, then tightened her arms around Regeane’s neck. Her soft kiss was a whisper of love and trust against Regeane’s cheek. “I’ll be good,” she promised, “and I’ll try to do what Aunt Emilia tells me.”
“Mother,” Augusta said. “The pope is going to his couch. The feast is beginning. We must recline.”
Regeane set Elfgifa down and found herself enveloped in Emilia’s quick, unexpected embrace. “Thank you for your sweet compassion. You’ll never know how happy it’s made us to get the child back. My brother adores her. You have our eternal gratitude.” Then she hurried away to join the other nuns seated across the room.
Lucilla nodded to Regeane as though she were a mere acquaintance and she, too, walked away toward her seat near the foot of the table.
Regeane stood for a moment, watching her, holding Elfgifa by the hand, Augusta beside her. “How strange,” she murmured. “She must be one of the most powerful personages in Rome and yet propriety consigns her—”
“Be quiet,” Augusta interrupted harshly as she looked quickly around. “Someone might hear you. My mother is continually a disgrace and an embarrassment to me,” she added with an air of martyrdom. “She has sufficient fortune to live modestly—as a proper Roman matron should—and devote herself to the church, to relief of the poor. But instead she consorts openly with the lowest element in the city. She dabbles in politics and other matters unbecoming to a woman of rank. And above all, she continues to see a man whose company she should properly avoid as occasion of sin.”
Regeane bit back the retort already forming in her mind. Elfgifa broke in on her angry thoughts to ask, “Are we going to eat lying down again?”
“Yes,” Regeane said sternly. “It’s the custom here and, as guests, we must do honor to our hosts.”
“I didn’t object,” Elfgifa replied in an injured tone. “I was only asking.”
XV
THE MUSIC WAS SOOTHING AND BEAUTIFUL. THE conversation among the guests civilized and subdued, the food and many wines a complex tapestry of color and flavor, an embarrassment of riches.
Regeane was bewildered, but delighted by the first courses of the banquet. She and Elfgifa feasted on thrushes and bobolinks braised in a white wine sauce, their flesh permeated by the sweet taste of the figs used to fatten them.
Augusta gave them both a look of disapproval and contented herself with a salad of endive, watercress dressed with oil, a little honey, and some wine, saying, “At my age I have to watch my weight. The two of you should be more careful,” she warned darkly. “The eating habits you form now will follow you all your life.”
Elfgifa dutifully tried some of the salad and made a wry face at the bitter taste of the greens.
They were seated near the pope’s couch and Regeane saw him smile at Elfgifa’s reaction to the greens. Then he sent over a dish from his own table.
“For the child,” the smiling servant said as he presented it to Elfgifa.
Augusta stiffened into complete disgust when she saw the contents of the dish—pears cooked in cinnamon honey and wine in a light sauce thickened only with a few egg yolks.
Elfgifa ignored Augusta’s admonition that she would ruin her appetite for dinner and gorged herself saying, “I don’t care. I like what’s here now.”
Servants then cleared away the heavy, scrolled silver dishes and the guests washed and dried their fingers. The serving man poured rosewater over their hands.
Elfgifa got rosewater up her nose because she tried simultaneously to sniff the scented water and wash her hands at the same time. She began sneezing violently.
Rigid with fury, Augusta lay propped on her right elbow, pretending Elfgifa didn’t exist, while Regeane, scarlet with embarrassment, tried to repair the damage and stop the sneezes by bathing Elfgifa’s face with a napkin steeped in the offending rosewater.
“Oh, good heavens,” Regeane whispered, completely exasperated. “Can’t you stay out of mischief for even one second?”
Elfgifa’s little face scrunched itself up and she looked like she might begin to cry. Regeane was immediately conscience-stricken.
“I’m sorry,” Elfgifa said. “I didn’t mean it. Only the water smelled good and I wanted—”
“Hush,” Regeane said, taking the little girl’s face between her hands and kissing her on the forehead. “There’s a good girl. Now, don’t cry.”
Elfgifa refused
to be comforted and hung her head. “Is that why you want to be rid of me? Because I’m not a good girl? I must be bad, because everyone’s always telling me things to do and not to do and—oooh! Look how pretty!” she said, her grief forgotten like a passing shadow.
One of the serving men was offering the guests cups. They were glass, each in the shape of a different flower.
“Can I have any kind I want?” Elfgifa asked as the servant paused before them holding the tray laden with the glass confections. Elfgifa bounced up and down with delight. “I like the sunflower. No, the harebell. No, I don’t know. The lily is so pretty.”
“Don’t kick so,” Augusta said in a dreadful voice. “Make up your mind and don’t break it.”
Elfgifa subsided immediately and her two large, blue eyes instantly became pools of tears.
“Don’t be cruel, Augusta,” Regeane snapped. “She’s only a child.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Augusta hissed. “A nasty, sloppy, hateful little …”
Elfgifa looked stricken and pressed close to Regeane’s side.
Regeane could feel her own passionate anger drain the blood from her face and she draped her arm over Elfgifa’s shoulders. “Yes,” she said softly. “You can have any one you like.”
“I think I like the blue harebell best,” a subdued Elfgifa whispered to Regeane as she looked up fearfully at Augusta.
Regeane glanced at the servant. The handsome, young man was staring at Augusta with dislike.
“Very well,” Regeane said. “I’ll take the lily and,” she added maliciously, “since you like it, Augusta will have the sunflower.”
Regeane’s lily was of rare, clear crystal, the petals each tipped in white, while Elfgifa’s harebell was a pale blue streaked with darker sapphire markings, each placed to suggest the delicate coloration of the spring flowers.
The beverage served in the cups was a dessert wine. Regeane chose a sweet raisin, Elfgifa one scented with roses, and Augusta, predictably, took the beverage redolent of violets.
A young girl strolled into the opening between the tables and took her place near the musicians.
Conversation among the guests stilled as they waited expectantly for her to begin singing.
“Doesn’t look like much, does she?” Augusta said.
Indeed, to Regeane’s eye the simply dressed girl was plain, almost ugly. She was dark-haired, her high-cheekboned face was distinguished only by a hooked nose, but when she began to sing, Regeane forgot the tall, thin body and the almost ugly face. The girl’s voice was a golden thread of liquid beauty winding among the strings. The flute accompanied her with a sad, lilting melody.
She sang a simple lyric about a poet who begs the gods to spare his mistress’ life. The girl’s voice and the poet’s lyric phrases painted a heartrending portrait of a helpless, lovely young girl stricken by a dangerous and frightening disease and her lover’s terror and grief.
Regeane found her eyes filling with tears, but Augusta affected not to be moved at all by the music. When the song ended and the girl bowed and slipped away, she sniffed and said, “Dulcina, another one of Mother’s charity cases. She found her swamping out taverns. The child was a slave and her master didn’t feed her very well. She sang for the few coppers the patrons threw at her feet and so was able to earn a little extra food. Now, thanks to Mother’s patronage, she’s the most popular entertainer in Rome. But, dear me, Propertius and here of all places.”
“Propertius?” Regeane asked.
“The poet who wrote the poem Dulcina set to music. So passionate the verses about his Cynthia, how deplorable. Many churchmen disapprove of them. But that’s my mother, ever the sentimentalist. Despite all her cynical talk, she believes in love.”
Regeane remembered Hadrian and Lucilla together, their oneness even in sorrow for Antonius and in the face of failure and perhaps, defeat. “Possibly that’s because she has known love,” Regeane said.
“Ha,” Augusta said. “Nonsense. That odious, but I must admit, profitable connection should have been broken off years ago. It’s nothing but a source of trouble for both of them now. She is not so much loving but, as I said, sentimental. I’ve noticed she never lets sentiment stand in the way of destroying her enemies.”
Regeane didn’t answer, but privately agreed that, much as she hated to admit it, Augusta had a point. She had sensed a certain ruthlessness in Lucilla and she considered dispassionately if she failed to either find a cure for Antonius or keep him hidden, Lucilla probably would see to it she paid the price.
Elfgifa was growing restive. “I like the pretty music,” she said. “And the cup is nice, but are we going to get any more to eat?”
Augusta’s lips thinned to a cruel line as she glared down at Elfgifa. “I would think after making a pig of yourself with those pears, you would—”
“A pig!” Elfgifa cried, and for a second, Regeane saw the wild barbarian chieftain who was her father etched plainly on her features. Her mouth was hard. The small, blue eyes had a steely glint in them.
Regeane rolled over, pinning Elfgifa to the couch with the weight of her body. “Stop it,” she hissed into the struggling little girl’s ear. “Stop it now. Don’t you dare throw a tantrum here.”
Elfgifa stiffened and complied. “She called me a pig …”
“I don’t care what she called you,” Regeane said in a hoarse, furious whisper, “and she did not call you a pig. She meant you ate a lot of the pears, and so you did.”
“Shocking,” Augusta said. “The way you and my harebrained mother spoil that child. What she needs …”
Regeane looked up and realized Hadrian was watching them with a sly grin on his face. It seemed he found the entertainment emanating from their couch to be equal or superior to that of the musicians. She felt her face burn.
“For heavens sake, stop squabbling, both of you,” Regeane begged. “The pope is looking at us. You’re making a spectacle of yourselves.”
Directing a look of freezing contempt at both Regeane and Elfgifa, Augusta said, “I never make a spectacle of myself.”
“All right,” Elfgifa said with ill grace and throwing an equally unpleasant look at Augusta, “I’ll put up with her for your sake.”
“Thank you,” Regeane said sarcastically and noticed with much more sincere thanksgiving that the servants were entering carrying the main course on platters.
When the soberly garbed young servant made the rounds of the tables picking up the delicate flower cups, he paused at the table and spoke softly to Regeane. “Since the young lady,” he indicated Elfgifa with a nod, “likes the cup she chose so much, His Holiness begs her to accept it as a gift.”
Elfgifa threw a smug, triumphant glance at Augusta and clutched the cup to her bosom.
Augusta looked daggers at Elfgifa.
Regeane, very tired of both of them, concentrated grimly on selecting supper from among the many offerings. She settled on a loin of young, wild boar smothered in a delicious, plum sauce, and a dish of peppered sea urchins.
Augusta contented herself with a baked trout in a sauce of honey and almonds.
Elfgifa shared Regeane’s wild boar, but turned her nose up at the fish and sea urchins.
At the first taste of the wild boar, Regeane’s eyes closed with delight and she managed temporarily to forget Elfgifa and Augusta. She lost herself in the joy of eating a really perfect dish and she gave a regretful sigh when she and Elfgifa polished it off.
Augusta’s prediction proved false. The pears affected Elfgifa’s appetite very little, if at all, and Regeane turned her attention to the sea urchins.
The spicy little morsels provided the perfect finish to an experience Regeane considered both more subtle and spectacular than merely dining and she was searching her mind for words to describe her own inner satisfaction to herself when Augusta’s words broke in on her thoughts.
“A young, unmarried woman shouldn’t be seen eating such a dish in public, my dear,” Augusta said patronizingl
y. “Sea urchins are said to be even more aphrodisiac than oysters.”
“What’s a frodisiac?” Elfgifa asked.
The muscles in Regeane’s temples twitched as the wolf tried to lay her ears back and didn’t succeed. “Never mind,” she said impatiently and began reaching for the dish of colbainan olives when she saw Gundabald.
The room blurred away as the shock of terror ran through her body.
He was seated at the very end of the table opposite her, Hugo beside him. Preoccupied by both the food and the antics of Augusta and Elfgifa, she hadn’t seen him before.
He caught her eye and raised his cup to her, a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
Regeane’s fingers pushed at the velvet of the couch as she tried to rise. And if she had been strong enough, the mindless terror she felt at the sight of him and the realization of the cruel significance of his satisfied smile might have propelled her to her feet and sent her into precipitous flight.
But she found she couldn’t do anything at all. The room was spinning. Nausea twisted her belly muscles. She felt the sweat of pure terror break out all over her skin.
The wolf tried to come to her aid, but was trapped in her twisting body by the light. The torches blazing against the walls. The candles burning in the ceiling fixture above. The sconces on the pillars of the colonnade separating the dining room from the dark garden. So many candles, the columns suddenly seemed to be draped in fire.
Sounds were overpoweringly loud, the babble of voices, the threads of music twining among them.
Regeane realized the wolf was in her eyes and ears and the brilliantly lit dining room was a place of terror to the wolf. The lights blinded her. The packed mass of people and the stench of sweet, over-spiced food and perfume going sour on hot, moist flesh. The sound of voices roaring like a mountain torrent in her ears.
Regeane let her head fall to the cushions under her face. Augusta’s voice thundered like storm surf in her ears.
She clucked at Regeane with mock sympathy. “Poor dear, have you had too much wine?”
Too much wine? Regeane knew she hadn’t had too much wine, only a few sips of the beverages served with the meal, and the amount of raisin wine in the flower cups hadn’t been enough to make her drunk. Not unless there was something else in it.
The Silver Wolf Page 24