God, she was beautiful in both guises. After he had kissed the tips of her fingers he lingered, playing with the soft hand. He remembered the assassin’s crushed wrist. If Matrona was right, she’d saved his life.
He and Matrona might age more slowly than mortal humans, but age they did. And, moreover, had the knife found his heart before he could flee into the change, he would die as quickly and as finally as any man.
She withdrew her hand gently, but firmly, from his. “I must leave, but I thank you for everything.” She hesitated. “I am of Antonius’ mind. Go to your mountains. Be free.”
“Life is but coin for the spending,” he replied softly. “We are not gifted with breath, our faces are not turned to the beauty of the world … that we may cringe and hide from its pain and difficulty. We gaze upon beauty and ugliness alike and do not fault or criticize the giver. I am at your command. I, and my men, will ride with you and Antonius, as your escorts.”
“Be careful,” Regeane said. “I will take you at your word.”
He bowed and ushered her toward the gate and her carriage.
MAENIEL LED THE FOUR WHITE MULES THAT DREW the vehicle, being careful to keep the pace comfortable for the woman inside.
Gavin rode beside him. He pelted Maeniel with accusations, entreaties, warnings, dire threats, and at last, pleas. “Are you out of your mind? Is your brain invaded by maggots? Have you taken leave of your senses? My God, think what you’re doing! This Frankish girl could get you killed!” He continued to harangue Maeniel until they reached the Lateran.
Maeniel listened. He despaired of making Gavin understand. He had searched for this girl for a thousand years, and in an instant, he might lose her.
“You have never loved a human woman before,” Gavin growled.
“Have I?” Maeniel said. “Have I not? If not one, a thousand, and they are dust. All … all dust.”
There were those before I was captured as a man, he thought. They have no names. But the rest. My God, each was a spot of guilt on his soul. A place of pain from which his mind turned.
Morgana, ugly, but desire incarnate. Creamy freckled skin, large jutting breasts, a generous mouth always ready to laugh or kiss. Wide, giving hips. Hair of fire.
Guinevere. He still challenged men like Gavin who spoke ill of her. Maeniel shivered and looked up at the broken cloud sweeping across the sky. Sometimes the vessel of the flesh is too frail for the spirit poured into it. Her body was nothing but a fragile lamp for a fire too bright for a mortal shell. When they laid her on the pyre, stars fell from heaven, flashing against the midnight black empyrean. The heavens themselves mourned her.
“Oh, yes,” he said to Gavin. “I have loved women. And paid the forfeit of my loving. Now, they are dust. And if I enumerated even a few of them, I would unman myself.”
He halted the carriage on one of the side streets near the Lateran. The square was crowded. People were pushing in around the church steps. Maeniel turned to Gavin. “Are you ready to obey me?”
Gavin looked both despairing and disgusted at the same time. “Of course, and give my life for you.” He dismounted.
Regeane pretended not to notice anything.
“My lady,” Maeniel said as he handed her from the litter.
Gavin, standing right behind him, snarled, “My lady, my ass.”
A second later, Gavin was sprawled on the cobbles, staring up at the sky and then at Maeniel’s and Regeane’s retreating backs. He wasn’t sure quite how it had happened.
Matrona helped him to his feet. She didn’t laugh at him. “May happen you’re right,” she said. “We may be walking into disaster.” The massive Joseph and Gordo stood next to her. “But for the moment, we are one.” Then they swept forward and surrounded Regeane and Maeniel as they tried to force their way to the Lateran steps. “It is the law,” Matrona said. “He leads, we follow … into the fight.”
Regeane saw Maeniel’s people come up. Facing such a mass of armed men, and, she saw with some shock, women, the crowd parted easily. In a few seconds, they stood in the square in front of the church. The crowd left the open space in the center empty. The papal guard blocked entrance to the church doors. Antonius, dressed in white, waited with the pope’s men-at-arms.
In his unbleached linen and wool, he looked like an ancient Roman. But he wore no toga, only a thick mantle and tunic. A heavy gold belt pulled it in at the waist and another heavy gold chain was around his neck.
At his signal, the pope’s men opened the bronze doors for them. People stepped aside quickly to let them enter, crowded away from them in fact.
“The word is out,” Antonius muttered. “There will be some hideous accusation against all of us before this is finished.”
On the altar, mass was ending. The high wooden choir stalls running lengthwise against the church walls held the bishops and cardinal priests of the city. The great nobles filled the center of the church.
They and their wives were a rainbow of color to Regeane’s eyes. She had not known so many rich fabrics existed—silk shot with brocade, cloth of gold striped with cloth of silver. The colors sang. Blues, warm as a summer sky, contrasted with the silken sheen of a winter midnight. Scarlet, rich as a rose’s heart, shaded away into imperial purple, delicate spring violet, or crystalline amethyst. A feast set off by flashes of green and gold, each and all vied for the eye’s attention. Jewels glittered around necks, arms, hands. Veils of silk, linen, and lace covered women’s heads.
This glittering throng was the pope’s supporters, judges, and friends. These were as much papal electors as the priests ringing the church. They stood to suffer most if the pope’s Frankish policy failed. And had the most to gain if it succeeded.
Regeane looked up and realized the roof of the Lateran church was fitted with panels of frosted glass. She and the glowing throng were bathed in warm, blue-tinged light.
The space near the altar was clear. The white marble floor was lightly dappled with color from the stained-glass windows in the walls, and faint watery blue from the skylight.
Regeane glanced at the faces ringing the altar.
Gundabald and Hugo were there. She snorted slightly in derision. She’d told them to bathe, and it looked as if they might have. Their hair and beards were trimmed and glistened with what might be pomade. The garb they wore looked newly purchased and amazingly clean. Silve hung on Hugo’s arm. She wore a clean blue velvet dress, a smirk, and a wedding ring.
Regeane let out a whoop that she tried to turn into a cough. Hugo knew she was laughing at him. He went scarlet. But Gundabald studied her with a really frightening glower of hatred. Near them stood Basil with a large contingent of fighting men. Gundabald’s stare said as clearly as if he had spoken, You’ll laugh out of the other side of your mouth soon enough. Regeane’s laugh ended in a shiver of fear.
Barbara and Emilia were present with Elfgifa. When the child saw Regeane, she tried to break away and run to her, but Barbara and Emilia both had fast hold of her hands. At length, she was persuaded to obey them. Near them, among the nuns, stood the old woman from the lodging house. She held the hand of a very scrubbed-looking small boy. Regeane recognized Postumous and felt a thrill of surprise knowing the one she’d always thought of as the old woman must be Postumous’ mother.
Even Cecelia was present, though heavily veiled. Rufus stood with a large contingent of his men on Regeane’s side of the church. He was accompanied not only by fighting men, but by other nobles who apparently were his liege men. Regeane had not known he was so powerful. Near him and apparently under his protection stood many of Lucilla’s maids. Regeane recognized Fausta and Susanna among them.
On the altar the mass ended. Hadrian’s acolytes removed his vestments, leaving him wearing only the simple white that is the prerogative of the Vicar of Christ. He stepped forward from the candlelit sanctuary into the clear light from the cathedral ceiling.
Basil pushed his way from among the contingent of armed men near Gundabald and Hugo. He was
as splendidly dressed as any of the nobles, but the black and gold tunic he wore covered mail. His helmet was under his arm. His sword at his side. He raised his arm and pointed an accusatory finger at Hadrian. “False priest, you are pope, not by the election of good Christian men, but placed in power by the evil one himself. You are the Devil’s minion and his power seated you in most blasphemous fashion in the chair of Peter.”
The church was hushed.
“Where is she, Basil?” Hadrian asked.
Regeane could see Basil was taken aback. She heard a scuffling of feet. Men of the papal guard entered the basilica at a dead run, filling the side aisles and pushing people away from the entrance. They shot a huge iron bolt across the immense bronze portals.
A ripple of fear ran through the crowd of magnates that filled the church. Even the nuns huddled together more tightly. A few made the sign of the Cross, but Barbara simply sighed. Elfgifa, trying to take it all in, was bright-eyed with excitement. Not the adults, however. Almost all of them looked frightened.
“Where is she?” Hadrian repeated. The quiet fury in his voice was sufficient to quell a riot. Only a pope or a king can sound that way, Regeane thought. For the first time since she’d known him, Basil looked frightened.
“You are inches from death, Basil,” Hadrian continued. “Where is she?”
Basil looked around wildly. He might have many more of his supporters in the square, but inside the church, they were well outnumbered by the pope’s men. He had been very neatly mousetrapped by Hadrian.
On her left, Regeane felt a stirring. Antonius was moving aside his mantle ever so surreptitiously so that he could reach the sword in his belt. Maeniel on her right, was doing the same. Both men moved closer to her. All over the church Regeane could see similar stirrings among the men of the warrior class.
“She confessed,” Basil shouted.
“Basil,” Hadrian replied, “given sufficient inducement, almost anyone will confess to anything. I want her here now. Produce her forthwith.”
Regeane heard a succession of snapping sounds and a gasp of absolute horror around her.
Maeniel seized her. He dropped to the floor and arched his body over hers. She lifted her head and looked out past his arm. The men of the papal guard had archers among them. The popping sounds had been the noise of the compound bows being drawn. Most of the men had emulated Maeniel, diving for the floor and taking their women with them.
Basil and his men were still standing.
“That’s it,” Hadrian said. “Stay where you are, Basil. If you drop to the floor, my men will take it as a signal to fire.”
Basil beckoned to one of his men. When the soldier approached him, Basil spoke quickly into his ear. Both Basil and the soldier glanced at Hadrian.
Hadrian nodded. The soldier ran out of the church through the vestry.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Regeane had forgotten the bishops and cardinal priests of the city. They had been sitting quietly in their choir along the walls of the basilica. Since the wooden seats were elevated, they could see over the heads of the crowd. They were not menaced by the pope’s soldiers who stood in front of the choir seats with their backs to the prelates.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Regeane twisted under Maeniel, but shifted his bulk only slightly. “What’s that noise? Let me up. I’m suffocating. I can’t see what’s going on.”
Maeniel chuckled and raised his body slightly.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“What is it?” she asked again.
“Hush,” Antonius answered. “It’s one of the bishops. He’s unhappy with Hadrian’s high-handedness. He’s pounding his crozier against the floor of the choir stalls.”
“What’s going to happen?” Maeniel asked.
“Nothing,” Antonius said, “unless the others join him.”
As quickly as Antonius spoke, they did, and the entire basilica resounded with crashing booms as the rest made their opinion felt.
Antonius said, “Shit.”
“Not a good development, I take it,” Maeniel said.
Hadrian lifted his left hand in signal to the archers. The bows were lowered. Their strings loosened gradually. The booming died away.
The notables in the center of the church began rising to their feet, breathing prayers of thanksgiving.
Basil’s men who had been bunched into a tight group, each man competing for a spot behind someone else, relaxed, spread out, and gave each other room.
Basil’s face began to show some color. “We have proof,” he screamed.
“Proof!” someone shouted. “Hell, death, and damnation! I have been this day frightened out of my five senses and few wits. Proof of what, I ask you? What crime has been committed by His Holiness?” The speaker stepped forward and Regeane saw Rufus, Cecelia’s Rufus. His face was scarlet with fury.
Basil beckoned to … Gundabald!
Gundabald walked slowly to the central space between Hadrian and Basil. He stopped and pointed a finger at Regeane. “There she stands. The daughter of the evil one himself.”
His arm dropped. “It is said,” he continued, “that the demon may appear as an angel of light. So did he to my poor sister, Gisela. He seduced her with his store of gold, his bodily beauty. He pretended to wed her … to hold her in honorable marriage.” Gundabald lifted his arm again and pointed to Regeane.
“He got this hell-spawn child on her.” His arm fell again and he turned to the Roman notables. “Luckily, we got my sister away from this visitor from the realms of darkness. But we found to our horror she was with child.”
Regeane felt the harsh movement of air in and out of her lungs. Her lips, face, and fingers were numb. She hadn’t known she could feel as much fear as she felt this moment. The church was absolutely silent. They were hanging on Gundabald’s every word.
“Alas,” he said, “my sister was a saint. We told her to strangle such a babe at birth. Send it hence to join the legions of the damned. But to her eternal sorrow, she didn’t. Instead, she wore out her life in penances, weeping for her sins, trying to redeem …” His voice rose. He looked and pointed at Regeane again. “… this daughter of darkness. She has powers,” he roared, his voice echoing under the roof. “She can walk on two feet or run on four. No lock or bolt can hold her. By night she can be as mist, joining in the airish vapors to escape through a shuttered window or under a door. She can wear the semblance of a bat and fly to and from the gates of hell. She can wear the semblance of a wolf and couple lasciviously with either man or beast. The very night her mother died, she ran four-footed and took her bestial lovers—as many as wanted her—by moonlight.”
Sister Angelica stood among the nuns. She screamed an ear piercing yell that rattled the roof tiles, and then she had hysterics. “I knew it!” she bellowed. “I knew it when the girl saw Hildegard. The dead are as the living to her. The little demoness is one with the foulness of the grave. Send her hence. She belongs not with the living.”
Gundabald walked over to where Regeane stood and stopped just out of arm’s reach. He looked almost as if he might be sober. The whites of his eyes were yellow, but no longer a webwork of broken blood vessels. He studied her with grim satisfaction. “You’re dead, my girl,” he said quietly. “Dead before the sun sets this day.” Then he walked back to Basil.
Basil stepped forward and joined Gundabald. “Antonius!” he shouted. “Come forth.”
Antonius moved out into the center of the floor, hand on his sword hilt.
Basil eyed him fearfully. “Antonius … you should be … dead. The last time I saw you, you stank of the grave. Your face was so eaten away, you … must cover it, lest even strong men turn from you in horror. Your hands were claws, the bones pushed through your skin. The devil’s mark was on you. All in this room know you were doomed—rotting, while yet alive.” Basil turned toward the crowd of notables behind him. “All here know, I tell you.” His voice rose to a shriek. “You know … None of you can contradict me. None
of you would dare lie, not while you stand before the altar of God. You know.”
No one in the crowd spoke, but none would meet his eyes, either.
Basil turned back again. This time to confront Hadrian. “Now … now I see him. He stands before me … a healthy man in the prime of life. When not a month ago, he carried the marks of God’s curse … on you for trafficking with a harlot, a witch, and—” Basil pointed to Antonius. “—a sorcerer.
“This girl, who her own kin repudiate … this girl dressed in silk and cloth of gold … is no saint with a healing touch. What damned and damnable spawn of darkness did she summon to pull your minion back from the brink of nothingness? To wield such foul power, she must indeed stand close to the throne of hell. And you—” Basil’s voice was a roar. “You must be sworn liege man to the king of devils, else he would not have sent you such a servant.”
Everyone was silent as Basil stalked back to rejoin his men.
“Nonsense,” Antonius said loudly. “Nonsense,” he repeated more loudly. “None can look on this sweet virgin’s face—” He gestured toward Regeane. “—and believe she is less than an innocent, virtuous maid.”
Basil shouted, “The eternal enemy of man can appear to those he would deceive … as an angel of light.”
Antonius shot back, “I can well believe you are an expert on the diabolic, Basil. The ancient lords of the pit are bosom friends, if not near kin to you.”
“Enough,” Hadrian intervened. “I can well believe something strange has happened here. These accusations are very disturbing. Some explanation must be offered …”
He didn’t get a chance to finish his speech because three men entered through the vestry. They were half leading, half carrying someone wrapped in a black robe with a hood. Even as far away as she was, Regeane could smell blood. Old blood, thick and rotten, the raw meat stench of fresh blood and, worst of all, burned flesh.
The Silver Wolf Page 49