The Silver Wolf

by Alice Borchardt

  The sound was a wet one. Like a green twig, Regeane thought. When Maeniel flung her away, her head had cracked against the table and, for a moment, her body was numbed. The wolf tried forcefully to take her, but the torch in Antonius’ hand quelled her. She watched as the assassin fell bonelessly to the floor, dead before his skull cracked on the marble tiles.

  “Goddamn it, you killed him,” Antonius shouted.

  “No choice,” Maeniel said, pointing to the deadly stiletto.

  Regeane pulled herself to her feet with one hand while feeling for a scalp wound with the other.

  Lucilla ran into the room. She grasped at the curtain for support. It tore. She fell forward, but Maeniel caught her and returned her to an upright position. She stood and stared down at the assassin. “My goodness,” she said, “Petrus.”

  “You know him,” Maeniel said very, very softly. In that softness crouched almost infinite menace.

  Antonius replied by thrusting his mantle at Regeane. “Woman! You’re naked! Cover yourself.”

  Regeane snatched the mantle and wrapped it around her body. Then she hurriedly began gathering up her clothing from the floor.

  The few remaining sober guests converged on the doorway.

  “Mother knows a lot of people. Some of them are even quite respectable—some are not,” Antonius said trenchantly to Maeniel.

  Regeane slipped into another room. It was very dark, but she could see enough to tell that it was a small storage closet. One small barred window let in the cold night air.

  She remembered a story from the Bible. In Genesis, once the grace of God is withdrawn, nakedness is accompanied by shame. This was true. She had gloried in her nakedness with Maeniel. She had felt clothed, glowing with desire. Her fears and inhibitions dissolved at his touch.

  The wolf was silent, gazing at the vast spill of stars through the barred window, a dusting of light across the dead black sky.

  She remembered the gray one and the clean mountain wind. She remembered Maeniel’s frozen features—the death’s-head grin as he bared his teeth and struck his enemy down. Attractive as the thought of loving him might be to her hot and pulsing body, the night, the wolf, and her cold, incisive human reason told her it would be folly to trust him with her secret. She had just seen him kill a man with his bare hands.

  He led his band of ruffians not by any right, human or divine, but because he was the strongest and could quell revolt with fist and sword. They respected him not because he was best, but because he was worst among them. Sooner or later the she-wolf would have to fight for her life.

  So … now … she felt no desire. Only the cold, flesh-piercing wind through the open window and shame, deep shame and vulnerability at her nakedness. She was indeed that naked and alone.

  Suddenly, beyond the door she heard a woman scream.

  XXXI

  REGEANE WOKE. SHE WAS LYING ON ONE OF THE couches in the triclinium, wearing a soft linen robe. Her head ached. She reached up and found a very tender spot on the left side of her head. She turned to sit up and realized the room was strewn with dead men.

  One lay across the table, his throat cut. Another was lying in the doorway of the triclinium, his head in a pool of blood. Another lay across the musicians’ fallen chairs, a spear through his body.

  The wolf brought Regeane to her feet immediately. How long had she been unconscious? Not long. The first gray dawn was filling the peristyle garden outside. She had to find out what had happened before she created a disturbance.

  She stumbled from the triclinium into the room where she and Maeniel had their moment of passion. It was empty.

  Just ahead was another curtained doorway. She pushed through it and found herself in a narrow Roman bedroom. A mirror rested on a small vanity table near the bed. She picked up the mirror and looked into it. Her features were blurred both by the mirror’s age and the dim light, but her eyes were clear. Her hair was free of blood and there remained only a small swelling on the side of her face.

  As she looked, her features blurred again. It seemed as though she smelled smoke. The eyes in the mirror looked back at her through a veil of blowing flame, then smoke obscured them. The metal grew hot in her hand.

  She still had the presence of mind to turn and fling the mirror facedown on the bed.

  She spun around, realizing that someone was watching her.

  The room had, as was the custom in most Roman homes, two doors, one leading into another room and the other to the peristyle.

  Matrona was standing in the door to the garden.

  “What happened?” Regeane asked.

  “Many things,” Matrona replied, “none of them good. Basil’s men attacked right after you went into the other room to dress. Like a fool, you opened the door at the sound of Lucilla’s scream. You were clubbed down. You must have a very hard head. At first, we thought you were killed, but we were too busy trying to defend ourselves to help you.”

  “You appear to have been successful,” Regeane said.

  “Even so.” Matrona said. “What did you see in the mirror?” Matrona’s eyes were pools of darkness. She seemed to look at Regeane out of infinite time.

  “My face,” Regeane said.

  “Oh, no,” Matrona chuckled. “You saw more than your face. I know, because that is my mirror and it once belonged to a princess of the great people who lived here long before the Romans made the Tiber stink: they of the painted tombs. Tell me, what did you see? If you tell me, I can help you.”

  Regeane’s mouth was dry. “I saw only my face,” she insisted.

  “As you wish,” Matrona replied with another shrug. Then she moved very close to Regeane and examined the bruise on her temple. “Nothing much,” was her judgment. “The way the soldier hit you, the way you fell, I had thought you much more severely injured.”

  “Well,” Regeane said. “I’m not. Where is Antonius?”

  “Outside with my lord.”

  Regeane pushed past her and out to the garden.

  Matrona walked over to the bed. She picked up the mirror and gazed down into it. After a few seconds, her brow furrowed and an expression of great sadness crossed her face. Then she placed the mirror face down on her toilet table.

  A fine-boned and beautiful goddess decorated the back. She rested in a chair, scroll on her lap while a boy capered before her, playing the double flute. Matrona’s fingers brushed the delicately etched mirror back. “Goddess, queen of the heaven they called you once,” she said. “Now I can no longer remember your name.”

  REGEANE FOUND ANTONIUS AND MAENIEL TOGETHER. The clothing of both men was torn and bloodied. Antonius had a bandage on his arm. Maeniel looked surprised to see her. Antonius didn’t.

  “My lady,” Maeniel said with a bow, “we had thought you badly injured. We were just discussing a way to find a physician for you.” He looked a bit baffled and at a loss, to see her so seemingly uninjured.

  A hint of dawn breeze tugged at Regeane’s long gray gown. They stood near the statue of some god Regeane couldn’t identify. It was beautiful, but had one missing arm. Presumably, Regeane thought, the one holding his ritual insignia. The deity’s face was one of androgynous beauty. His head lifted to gaze into the brightening sky in the east.

  Regeane felt a tightening in her belly muscles. They quivered. At the same time she felt a dreadful certainty. An assurance that when this now-dawning day was ended, many matters would be settled forever.

  “Today is the day the synod meets, isn’t it?” she asked Antonius.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Why is this so crucial?” Maeniel asked.

  “It is a day of decision for not only the people of Rome, but for the surrounding great magnates,” Antonius explained. “Desiderius, the Lombard king, has long wished to control the papacy so that he may use it against his enemy Charlemagne. He would unseat this pope and elect a Lombard prelate, one who would do his bidding and declare Charlemagne a usurper.

  “The people of Rome and t
he magnates, the great lords, and landholders surrounding Rome must now choose between Desiderius, the Lombard king, or Charlemagne and the Franks. What’s more of a certainty is that Desiderius will destroy this narrow state that still belongs to the pope and the people of Rome. He would absorb it into the Lombard duchy and make the pope’s vicars of Christ his court chaplains. Not a desirable thing from Charlemagne’s point of view, or ours. Living as we do in this tiny remnant of what once was the greatest empire on earth.”

  He stopped speaking. They stood quietly. Antonius could be devious, he could bandy half-truths, he could tell an outright lie and confront his listener with bland innocence, but both Regeane and Maeniel were moved at this moment by his utter sincerity. And they knew this man spoke the truth as he understood it.

  Then, to Regeane and Maeniel’s surprise, he burst into tears. “They’ve taken Mother and I’m sure they’re torturing her now.”

  “Oh, God,” Regeane said as she embraced him. “Why?”

  Maeniel answered. “We believe, Antonius and I, that she gave the task of … shall we say … removing your uncle to Petrus. It seems he heretofore often performed these little tasks for her. Antonius believes he was bribed into Basil and Desiderius’ service by a larger sum of money.”

  Regeane whispered the filthiest Frankish obscenity she knew under her breath. “I knew I gave them too much money.”

  “No,” Maeniel corrected her. “I can’t think they bought him with your money. We believe your uncle must have despaired of controlling you and practicing extortion on me, and made common cause with Basil and the Lombard king. The purpose of the raid was to kidnap you and Lucilla. It seems Lucilla has already been accused of being a practitioner of the black arts. Of having put the pope in the Chair of Peter by dealing with the foul fiend, the enemy of man.”

  “What …” Regeane started to ask about the leprosy charge, but Antonius dried his eyes quickly and gave her a warning glance. She stepped away from him. Propriety didn’t allow even a great lady familiarity with any man other than her husband.

  Maeniel studied them both—his expression opaque. “But then, the charge doesn’t matter, does it?” he asked. “Only that it be a sufficient excuse to destroy Hadrian. In fact, that’s why the Frankish king sent Count Otho and his men to stiffen the resolve of the Romans, not to repudiate Hadrian.”

  “Yes,” Antonius said, his voice filled with bitter grief. “Mother will say whatever they want, whatever is most convenient for them. And it remains to be seen if the Romans stand behind Hadrian or not.”

  “You are going to the synod, aren’t you?” Regeane asked.

  “Yes,” Antonius said. “When they produce Mother, my friends and I will try to free her from Basil’s clutches, whatever she may say and whatever her condition. But what I want you to do is take Regeane and flee. If you ride now, you can be at Ostia by nightfall. You have enough gold to procure a barque that will return you to Franca. You can sit safely in your mountains in a few weeks.”

  Regeane stepped away from the two men. The light was brighter, but a thick mist filled the garden with a pale haze and obscured the rising sun. “No,” she said. “I’m not leaving. You and your mother have been friends to me. More than friends, givers of wise counsel and protection. I have been able to help before and maybe I can be of service in this extremity. I will not go.”

  Unspoken words hung in the air between them. She was Maeniel’s wife now. The contract was signed. They had been alone together. Consummation could be argued.

  Antonius spoke the words. “Use force.”

  Regeane didn’t defy them. She answered very simply, “It won’t work.”

  Maeniel looked down at his hands. They were the big, strong paws of a fighting man, large, thick-fingered, and muscular. Last night he’d broken a large man’s neck with them. He looked up. “Force, no!” he said. “Somehow I don’t think the lady would respect my force any more than she respected her uncle’s and cousin’s. I will not take an enemy to my bed, or stare at her across the supper table. Besides, I share the decision of my lady’s mind. I pledged my loyalty to the king of Franca, Charles, so-called Charlemagne. My word is my bond. Even if it is given to an insect like Count Otho. I will support Charles’ candidate for the papacy. And, as Charles’ liege man, I will not desert him in time of need.”

  Regeane remembered her fears last night about Maeniel. Fears that he was a freebooter, an unprincipled brigand. She saw now these fears were false ones. She stretched out her hand to him. “I see my lord is a man of honor. I hope he will be so in his dealings with me.”

  He took her hand and saw in her eyes a look of almost mad desperation. “I hope—I believe—I am—as you describe me in all things, my lady,” he said as he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers.

  Antonius dried his tears with his mantle. “Mad … mad … mad barbarians,” he whispered.

  Matrona spoke from behind Regeane. “I will find you another dress. Go and bathe. The one you’re wearing belongs to Silvia. You might as well be in a tent. Come. There are baths here for women and men. I’ve paid the servants. They are heating the water.” She clapped her hands. “Attend me. Do as I say. The bishops and cardinal priests are now filing into the choir at the Lateran. Mass is about to begin. We must make haste. The synod is about to be convened.”

  Regeane and Antonius hurried away. Maeniel turned to follow.

  “Wait,” Matrona said. “I want to talk to you.”

  Maeniel raised one brow. “What?”

  “Come,” Matrona commanded. “Follow me. What I know now is too important to be left to chance.”

  She led him to the place where he had nearly been killed. The assassin was lying on the floor where he fell. The room was flooded with light now. The curtain was torn and there was a glass-covered opening in the ceiling. She bent down near the assassin and lifted the dead man’s right arm. She showed Maeniel the wrist Regeane had seized to save his life. The hand flopped.

  “The bones are broken,” Maeniel said, astonished.

  “One is, one is not,” Matrona said, “but the tendons are torn. No common woman seized him. She saved your life. The reason there is not more bruising is because he died very quickly and did not bleed. Had any ordinary woman reached over your shoulder and tried to stop the killer, he would have broken her grip and possibly some of her fingers and buried his knife in your back.”

  Maeniel knelt facing her. “Then … what?” he asked.

  “She is the silver one,” Matrona said.

  He quickly rose to his feet. “No,” he said.

  Matrona grunted cynically and stood. She walked toward the garden. Maeniel followed. “I hear from Gavin that you think you are old because you have seen a few Caesars,” she said.

  When they were outside, she sat down on a bench near the pool and gazed out over the still water. There were patches of blue in it as the haze was broken by the new sun. Turquoise sky, white clouds and gray chased themselves by in the still water.

  “Before the gods that made the gods was I,” Matrona said. “I cannot tell you of what an age I am because when I was born, we did not put the four seasons into a year. Every winter was a kind of death to us and we mourned the passing of life and beauty. We awaited every spring with bated breath—we were afraid it might not come—and when it did, we were mad with rejoicing at the world’s rebirth.

  “I sojourned long with my people. I rode the hollow ships when we came to Greece across the sunlit, wine-dark sea. I sat by the hearth in a smoky hall and heard a blind singer call the fair, blue water that. I cast oracles for the Latins at the time they freed themselves from the people of the painted tombs. Those old Romans loved and feared my skin-turning powers. In the end, fear prevailed. I was driven out with flaming brands and curses.

  “I found another people in the mountains. That sword—the gladius Antonius carries—I saw its shape first when the Roman legions crossed the mountains into Gaul. I saw the troops through the blowing snow. C
hased the invaders along and away from my people with my voice. And fed when the killers lost their way and perished in the cold.” She smiled grimly.

  “What happened to your people?”

  Matrona shrugged. “They were like the rest. Men cannot accept the sovereignty of the beast. They will not believe they are our kin. They will not believe we spring from the same root, and are part of the same tree, and when that tree falls, we will both perish. My people were happy and free. I led them to high meadows, into valleys where I knew the Romans would never come. But they were not content. They dreamed of Roman gold, of Roman luxury. Dishes and drinking vessels of silver and gold. Red wine and white. Soft, fair women, clothed in velvet and silk. At first the Romans bribed, then conquered them. And again I was alone.

  “I don’t say these things to boast or win sympathy. Only that you be aware I know many things. The girl is one of us. None but one of us could have crushed that man’s wrist. I saw her look into my mirror. I cannot say what she beheld, but she was able to do as I do. We use it to see into the world beyond. I repeat, she is one of us.”

  “I don’t …” Maeniel began.

  “Big, gray wolf,” she said, “don’t trouble me with your skepticism. Now at least you know how you appeared to Gavin. You will need carriages to ride to the Lateran. I must see to harnessing the mules.” So saying, she strode off to the stables.

  Maeniel stood looking after Matrona quietly. What she said explained a lot about both Regeane and herself. He had long known her for one of the strongest, most dependable of his band. If she had, in truth, seen the dawning of the world, it would explain her strength and iron will. Both she and he had endured through time.

  Matrona was as good as her word. When Regeane entered the peristyle garden, a mule litter waited at the iron-barred gate. She paused beside him. Matrona had found an old, but respectable cloth-of-gold dress. She wore a silken shift under it. Her face was almost as white as the cloth. “My lord.” She bowed her head slightly.

  “My lady,” he replied, bringing her hand to his lips. He remembered the silver one floating over the grass, her fur glowing with the icy sheen of precious metal set off by the bold, black highlights at the ruff, the belly, and the inner legs.