The Silver Wolf

by Alice Borchardt

  She fixed Regeane’s silk shift and satiny pepulous with a stern, disapproving eye. “I am Barbara,” she told Regeane, “and despite the name, I am Roman born and bred. I am the cook and you are assigned to the kitchen. Wash and dress. I’m already behind in my work. I will expect you there promptly. Please hurry.” She stalked out.

  Regeane hurried. She was given an apron by Sister Barbara and set to placing a joint of meat over a fire pit just outside the door.

  Most of Regeane’s life had been spent locked up or on her mother’s endless pilgrimages. Her meals had been taken in wayside taverns and religious hostels. She knew very little about cooking.

  The meat began to char. At the first hint of a stink, Barbara arrived like a thunderbolt. She directed a look at Regeane that nearly struck her dead on the spot and then she moved the spit up six notches higher on the rack.

  “Don’t you know anything?” she asked witheringly.

  Regeane protested with the utmost meekness. “But so high up, it won’t cook?”

  “You mean it won’t burn,” Barbara snapped. “Meat needs must cook slowly. The hot smoke seals the outside. The inside bastes itself in its own juices. And don’t question me further. I am,” she said grandly, “the greatest cook in Rome. Perhaps the best in the entire world.

  “I myself have studied the Frankish culinary arts. The few rude, but delicious innovations of the Saxons and the masterful tradition of our own Roman Apicitis. I need herbs. Now! I will want sage, basil, thyme, and rosemary to stuff the pork roast for supper. You will fetch me a sufficiency at once!”

  Barbara clapped her hands. “Hurry. There is not a moment to be lost. This is the best time of day to pick them, after the dew has dried and before they lose their savor to the sun.”

  Regeane had no idea what a sufficiency was. She managed to get a basil plant and a sage plant up by the roots and she was seriously threatening a rosemary bush when Barbara arrived at her elbow like a striking hawk.

  This time, the resulting blast of fury backed Regeane up several paces, clutching the unfortunate plants in her hand. But her feelings must have shown on her face because Sister Barbara broke off in midsentence and peered at her with interest.

  “What?” she said. “No tears? Usually I have them in tears by now or red-faced with anger. Not looking at me with mild irritation and even,” she peered at Regeane’s face, “perhaps contempt. I can see you have some spirit.”

  Regeane was angry. She could feel the flush of it burning in her cheeks, but then she consulted the wolf and found the creature amused. The images that arose in her dark companion’s mind were those of a mother bird cleverly feigning a broken wing to draw a predator away from her nest or a toad squirting and creating a stink, puffing himself up, warts sticking out all over his body, trying to convince the owner of a pair of jaws with long teeth that he was both ferocious and inedible. In a word, a bluff.

  “I can see,” Barbara said, “that you are an utter neophyte and must be instructed.”

  In a few moments she had the herb plants back in the ground, soil tamped down around their roots.

  “Do you think they’ll grow again?” Regeane asked anxiously.

  “Bah … who knows?” Barbara said with a flip of her hand. “I think so. They are not very far from their wild relatives that flourish in the open places on the Campagna or on hillsides overlooking the sea. If they don’t, I have many more.”

  She did have many more, all growing in brick-sided, raised beds between neatly swept flagstone walks.

  Each type of culinary wonder was confined in its own special cubicle. The plants seemed to stand at attention in the morning sun and Regeane could see from the occasional bald patch of soil between them that no weed dared raise its head in this well-ordered place.

  Barbara shot a glance at the meat roasting slowly over the fire near the kitchen door, then she led Regeane to a rude seat under an arbor near a wall where they could both sit and enjoy the beauty and delicate fragrances of the morning garden.

  “Behold,” Barbara said, gesturing at the kitchen and the garden behind it. “Behold my kingdom. I am mistress here and absolute monarch of all I survey. And if you allow yourself to be instructed by me, you, too, will lord it over your own kingdom one day even if it is only a walled garden.”

  Two trees guarded the small arbor, bending over the iron trellis. Regeane reached out a tentative hand toward one of the leaves.

  “Go on, child,” Barbara said. “Pluck one and savor its fragrance.”

  Regeane did. “Bay,” she said. It reminded the wolf of the night she seemed inexorably driven toward the ghostly temple, high above the sea.

  “Yes,” Barbara said, drawing Regeane out of memory. “The bush that provides us with crowns for our conquerors and savory pot roasts.”

  Regeane laughed. “And which one do you prefer?”

  “Why, the pot roasts of course, but not for the reason you think. Not because I’m a cook.”

  “Why then?” she asked.

  “Because conquerors come and go, but the pot roast endures forever.”

  “Surely not,” Regeane said. “It’s eaten at the next meal.”

  “Quite the contrary. Great Caesar himself delighted in the flavor of meat cooked with mushrooms and wine, and a thousand years from now men and women will make pilgrimages to a place where they can eat a meal prepared in the same way.

  “No, my dear, it is the conqueror who is ephemeral and the pot roast which is eternal. That is why Christ in his wisdom made His greatest sacrament a simple meal. Because the need is not simply for nourishing, but good food binds all mankind into one. Together they sit down three times a day to share the riches of the earth and the fruits of their toil with one another.

  “The pope may eat his from a silver dish with cardinals at his side, and the laborer sits on a stone with a piece of bread and a single jug of coarse wine in the company of a few friends, but they both give thanks to God for the same thing. And who knows?” Her eyes twinkled. “The laborer may enjoy his bread and wine more than the pope his ample repast. ‘Tis said appetite is the best sauce. In any case, Emilia has chosen me to be your instructor in this greatest and most ancient of all arts.”

  Regeane stared at a patch of dill pensively. The umbeliforous heads were almost ripe and ready to drop their hard, brown seeds. “I’m not sure how long I’ll have to learn what you can teach me. I’m to be married soon.”

  “Yes,” Barbara said, “so I hear, to some wealthy mountain lord. No doubt a drunken ruffian who goes to bed every night in his boots.”

  Regeane first sighed deeply, but found herself smiling and then laughing outright. “Not you, too?”

  “So Emilia told you her story, did she?” Barbara said.

  “Yes, the last night when we returned from the Lateran.”

  “I hope you got the short version,” Barbara mused. “Sometimes she embellishes it describing how he first turned pale, then gray, followed by blue, then …” Barbara threw up her hands. “Black!” she exclaimed. “How he clutched at his throat.” She clutched at her throat dramatically. “How he arched his back.” She arched her back.

  “Oh, stop!” Regeane cried. She was holding her sides and tears were running down her cheeks. “Stop. It’s not funny. The poor man died!”

  “Very so, he did,” Barbara said, easing her body back on her seat. “God rest his soul. Though if even half the things Emilia says about him are true, I doubt if he did. Find rest, that is.”

  She patted Regeane lightly on the knee. “Never mind, my dear. What else can you expect when you come among a group of women who have retired from the world. We … most of us have our reasons. Besides, don’t you think it’s as well to be prepared for the worst? In this world our hopes for the best are so often disappointed.” She smiled kindly at Regeane.

  But Regeane looked sadly past her at a sundial standing amidst a patch of calendula in the center of the garden. Each flower was a small sunburst, a frolicking ground for
bees as they went their ever busy way among the newly opened blossoms and the sundial cast its long morning shadow on its stone mounting.

  Hope for the best, Regeane wondered. What is the best she could hope for? Someone so brutal and dangerous that she could meet him in the darkness with a clear conscience? If her conscience could ever be clean after such a sin.

  But Barbara took her hand. “Oh, come now, don’t let my idle speculation cast a shadow for such a bright morning as this. Besides, if he is as I have said, no doubt you can disarm him with your beauty and grace. And as for cooking, I should say if he is wealthy, what you’ll need to do is learn to manage the cook. I can teach you how to do that in a word.”

  “In a word?” Regeane asked.

  “Yes,” Barbara said, “and the word is flattery. Taste the man’s food and if he seems at least halfway competent to you, lay it on with a trowel. For if cooking is the greatest and most ancient of all arts, it is also the most unappreciated and praise is rarer than gold and more precious than rubies to even its most humble practitioners.

  “Only flatter him and he will draw on all his skills to please you and your husband. As to that other thing of which men are so fond, pay close attention to Lucilla and faithfully follow her precepts and I’m sure you’ll be rewarded with deep devotion. After all, a lout like him must be delighted to be offered a woman of the royal house. And if he wants to keep a whole skin, he’ll cherish you. You might point out gently to him—oh, so very gently—that if he doesn’t, the Frankish king might take it as a personal insult. I’m sure he wouldn’t want that.” Barbara smiled a perfectly sweet, ingenuous smile.

  Regeane turned and stared apprehensively at Sister Barbara for a second. “Lucilla?” she asked. “How do you know about Lucilla?”

  “By now, my dear, everyone knows about Lucilla. Have no fear. Lucilla’s not a connection that will damage your reputation. Lucilla has many friendships among the women of this city. Among the powerful as well as the humble and weak. She is greatly esteemed, sometimes I think in places where even she doesn’t realize it.”

  “The pope has forbidden her to visit me,” Regeane said.

  “So I heard,” Barbara said, producing shears from her pocket. “How Emilia does talk.” She put the shears in Regeane’s hand. “Now, go fetch me those herbs I asked for and take your time. Meet my friends, the beautiful, harmless things growing here. Because by learning them and their proper uses one can turn even simple peasant fare into a delight that would charm princes and kings. And don’t be afraid to cut anything, for nothing noxious or evil grows in my garden.”

  Regeane took the shears and wandered out. Barbara’s herbs and flowers enchanted Regeane and the wolf, also. The shadow on the sundial was much shorter when she returned to the kitchen and found Barbara up to her elbows in bread dough.

  Regeane set the herbs on a chopping block and turned her attention to a task about which she felt full confidence—scrubbing pots and pans.

  The kitchen was airy and pleasant. She tackled the pots with a will as Barbara finished forming the bread into loaves and began chopping herbs with a two-handed curved knife while she began Regeane’s initiation into the culinary arts.

  “Basil,” she said, lifting a sprig to her nose. “The regular kind and also cinnamon and clove. I hope you noticed the difference.”

  “I did,” Regeane answered. “I’m sorry if I got too much. I hope they won’t go to waste.”

  “Not at all,” Barbara said, laying some aside. “The cinnamon and clove will do nicely to spice the baked apples I plan for lunch. Here,” she said, stripping the leaves from another stem. “Clary sage, an interesting choice, my dear. Long-stemmed thyme. Ah, you know something at least: a bit of rue, the merest tinge of bitterness, corrects the sweetness of a wine sauce. Rosemary, ever indispensable to the cook, and I will add a touch of garlic and the bread crumbs and we have our stuffing. This evening you may taste and see if any of your choices went awry.”

  Regeane was immediately alarmed. “You’re going to trust in my choices?”

  “Not entirely,” Barbara said wielding the knife with what Regeane recognized as a highly skilled rocking motion. “But as I told you, cooking is an art and even a beginner must be allowed some experimentation if he or she is ever to reach full potential. And when you are finished with the pots, my dear, you may give the floor a good scrubbing,” Barbara said grandly.

  “Thank you,” Regeane murmured quietly.

  Regeane scrubbed while Barbara held forth on the flesh of every member of the animal kingdom of which Regeane had ever heard and several the more conservative Franks didn’t think of as food, i.e., snails and songbirds, and when she was finished with these, she moved on to descriptions of less animate life, beginning with fruits and nuts and working down at last to the lowly cabbage. Wherein she paused, not for breath, but to inform Regeane it was time to rake out the bread oven.

  “I set the fire myself,” she said, “when I came down at dawn and it will be burned to cinders by now, and the stones will be hot and ready to puff the dough to golden fullness.” She handed Regeane a bucket and a long-handled rake. “Now, be careful. The door is hot and the stones, too. Don’t get too close. I’ll open the door for you.”

  Barbara was holding the oven door open and Regeane was raking like mad, trying to get the still live coals into the bucket before the stone oven cooled when Emilia entered the kitchen.

  “Barbara, just what in the world do you think you’re doing?”

  “We’re working,” Barbara snapped. “What does it look like we’re doing? You told me to teach her to cook.”

  “Teach her to cook, yes,” Emilia cried in horror. “Not turn her into a scullion. She is a royal lady. I meant for you to let her gather a few herbs, perhaps peel a turnip or two.”

  Barbara slammed the oven door. Regeane was only just able to jerk the rake clear in time to prevent its being broken in half.

  “What!” Barbara shouted. “You object to my teaching her that cooking is work?” She drew herself up proudly. “I … I, the daughter of one of the first families in Rome. I don’t scruple to get my hands dirty in the service of our community. Why should she?”

  Emilia threw up her hands. “Barbara, people talk …”

  “How well I know,” Barbara said grimly.

  “No matter. No matter at all,” Emilia said. “I’m aware I’m not blameless, but what if her royal kin should get wind of her cleaning out ovens? And what else have you had her doing this morning?”

  “She gathered a few herbs.”

  Emilia nodded approvingly.

  “Cleaned the pots and scrubbed the floor.”

  “Scrubbed the floor!” Emilia moaned. First, she clutched at her chest, then pressed the back of her hand to her brow. Then she snatched Regeane by the arm and towed her out of the kitchen, barely allowing her time to drop the bucket and rake.

  They were off down the hall, Emilia pulling Regeane behind her, muttering to herself. “What will His Holiness think?”

  “I don’t—” Regeane began, but Emilia cut her off.

  “What will the king think?”

  “Please—” Regeane said.

  “What,” Emilia almost shouted, “will Lucilla think?”

  They turned at the end of the short corridor to the kitchen and started up the stair.

  Regeane snatched at the newel post, locked her elbow firmly around it, and brought them both to a halt.

  “Eh, what?” Emilia said.

  “Please, Emilia,” Regeane implored. “Please let me wash my hands and face.”

  “Hands and face?” Emilia asked as if she’d temporarily forgotten the meaning of the two words. “Oh, yes. Definitely the hands and face. Definitely.”

  “Thank you,” Regeane said, “and I wouldn’t worry too much about my royal kin. I don’t know any of them.”

  “But don’t you see?” Emilia answered in some distress. “Whether you know them or not is unimportant. They are bound to know
you, and that’s what matters. Come, we’ll see how Sister Angelica likes you. She teaches a more ladylike skill—embroidery.”

  “Oh, dear,” Regeane said.

  SISTER ANGELICA DIDN’T LIKE REGEANE AT ALL. She made that plain from the outset. Obviously used to training the younger and more nimble-fingered daughters of the poor, she found an older noblewoman a definite embarrassment.

  She gave Regeane a glance lightly glazed over with ice and lost no time in assessing her needlework skills. Those were, as far as Angelica was concerned, nil—confined to weaving, mending, and patching. In other words, the activities required of a girl of shabby, genteel birth who wanted to keep her back decently covered. The skills with gold and silver thread required by fancywork had always been beyond Regeane’s means.

  So she was set to doing a simple cross-stitch in one end of a plain linen altar cloth.

  Regeane was submissive, but perfectly disgusted. She much preferred scrubbing the kitchen floor in Barbara’s company. She, at least, treated Regeane as a willing pupil and, in some ways, an equal, whereas Sister Angelica tried, with some success, to pretend she didn’t exist at all.

  So Regeane sat quietly at the table with the rest, her head bowed quietly over the cross-stitch, and endured. She soon discovered there was much to endure.

  Sister Angelica announced to her, as if making an important discovery, that idle hands and idle minds were the devil’s workshop, and no talking among her pupils was allowed. Instead of chatting among themselves, they listened to readings intended for their edification and entertainment. Today, she told Regeane, it consisted of an account of the persecutions of Diocletian.

  At first, Regeane only half listened. But then the very ordinariness of the people she was hearing about drew her. They were not in the least like the magnificent and often tragic characters she found in the histories she sometimes read. But rather the humble, who are never of much note in the great march of human affairs.

  They were servants, slaves, artisans, small shopkeepers, and the occasional poor priest or prelate—shadowy figures moving quietly among their flocks preaching courage by their example.