The guard post had been reached by a narrow stone stair that now began in water and went up the top of the arch onto a platform. The wolf couldn’t climb the stair, but the woman could—and did. It was difficult and the stones were slippery and damp, but when she reached the top she found she could survey the countryside for miles around. She was also dressed in webwork of white, flowered waterweed.
Well, the woman thought, not so strange. She’d been covered by fern on her journey through the other world. The waterweed was equally fresh smelling and beautiful.
The sun was touching the edge of the horizon and slightly obscured by the sooty clouds, but their shadow was more than compensated for by the metallic purple, red, and gold reflections thrown back by what she could see from here were wide wetlands, both open and forested, inhabited by a rich variety of birds, fish, and no doubt deer, wild boar, and other magnificent game. And far away in the distance, downstream, she saw the distinct towers of what she knew must be Pavia, faintly picked out against the blazing colors of the sunset by a few pinpricks of light.
Regeane lifted her robe of waterweed from over her shoulder and let it fall back into the tarn below; became wolf; turned once, twice, three times, then four; lay down, dropped her brush over her face, and slept.
VIII
Pavia was the breadbasket of the Lombard Kingdom. Here, on estates where slaves toiled raising crops on reclaimed wetlands, most of the wealth of this rich kingdom was concentrated. The Romans had adorned the city with the best of their manufacturers. Most of the people who lived in this jewel set in a countryside of magnificent abundance were either wealthy or slaves here to tend the needs of the wealthy or care for their property when they were absent. The city showed this, being a collection of magnificent villas, expensive public municipal buildings, and recreational establishments.
No one fortunate enough to enjoy amenities such as the racetrack, the arena, or the extensive and comfortable baths worried in the least about the ring of respectable but poor timber, stucco, and brick homes and shops that ranged the city, clustering on the inside and outside of the walls. The streets here were narrow, the houses were not spacious villas, and the people who lived in them worked for a living and were not in a position to enjoy the theater, the arena, and the baths.
The Lombards were of course not Romans, but when they took the town, they decided that living the way the departed Roman inhabitants had was a suitable prize for the conquerors. But by now the system was beginning to fray at the edges. Slaves were more expensive. The poorer class of the town were proving more difficult to control—much more demanding about their legal rights, for instance—than the rather cowed humiliores of Roman times. But the direct presence of the king and court were to some extent holding things together.
The hypocaust in the baths was still fired. Gladiators rarely fought in the arena, and the bishop kicked up a terrific fuss when one of them happened to get killed. Not because he sympathized with the poor man but because it should not be entertaining to watch blood be shed. But so long as they stuck to pagans, the elderly prelate didn’t get in too much of a snit. And if all else failed, there were always public executions and runaway slaves to be punished, so the Lombards had been able so far to preserve some aspects of Roman culture. And since slaves could still be purchased to be worked to death on the vast estates, and the crops still brought in a good price, the Lombards felt they were doing their best to preserve classical society.
Maeniel was brought into the forum at the center of the city. He was still in chains. The cold-eyed commander of the king’s guard was taking no chances. Maeniel had never seen Desiderius before, but he was immediately sure the tall, graying man looking at him from the steps of a converted temple of the goddess Roma must be the Lombard king.
The concept of the goddess Roma was a late classical invention. By then the entire empire had been a jackdaw’s nest of odd religions, including not a few cults of quite human deified emperors. Someone, it is not recorded who, swept the whole mess together and decided that if there were disputes about how state worship was to be conducted, the best and safest thing to do would be to throw a few sacrifices and a lot of incense at a personification of the Roman state apparatus from time to time; thus, if questions arose as to where the loyalties of individuals or groups lay, they could cover themselves by saying they paid homage to the goddess Roma.
She was a sort of generic stand-in for antique gods, dead emperors, the whole gang from Olympus, local spirits evil and good, fairies, trolls, kobolds, incubi, succubi, gnomes, dwarves, tommyknockers, and anything and everything that happened to go bump in the night, whose propitiatory rites might have gotten somehow neglected, overlooked, ignored, or just plain forgotten. The temples looked good and the votary wasn’t worshiping anything or anyone who ever could have existed, and only those really crazy Christians could possibly object to tossing a little incense on the coals.
This particular temple was now a Christian cathedral. The goddess, cosmopolitan that she was, probably never turned a hair. But the new bell tower looked awkward near the fine, late Roman concrete, marble, and brick basilican edifice.
Maeniel sighed and dismounted. The chains dragged.
Twelve rather steep marble steps led up to the large double bronze doors. The captain of the king’s guard poked the business end of a spear at the small of Maeniel’s back and said, “Move.”
Maeniel, not wanting any closer acquaintance with the spear, moved, up the steps, across a narrow porch, and through the bronze doors. The bishop, or someone dressed impressively enough to be a bishop, aspersed him with holy water and blessed him as he passed. Since Maeniel didn’t give off sulfur fumes, burst into flames, or vanish in a cloud of smoke, both the bishop and the king decided it was safe enough to follow him up the aisle into the church.
The king took a seat on one side of the altar and the bishop on the other. Maeniel looked at each one of them. The look was wolfish, but they apparently didn’t take it as such. Behind him, Maeniel heard the sounds of people crowding into the church.
The Lombard lords and ladies had priority. They and their servants—carrying fans, chairs, stools, smelling salts, nosegays of herbs against contagion, and last but certainly not least, food and drink—got all the best seats near the altar. Behind them the townspeople pushed their way into the spaces left clear by the nobility until every nook and cranny of the building was packed full.
Maeniel waited. In the interim, he bowed his knee to Christ, saluting him as the most powerful of all gods and paying his respects. Then he rose to his feet. The chains clanked when he went down and again when he rose; otherwise the church was silent.
The king chose to speak first. “My lord Maeniel, what are you doing in my kingdom?”
Maeniel answered truthfully, largely because he’d spent a lot of time trying to come up with a convincing story to explain his activities to the king and hadn’t, even after a good many hours of serious effort, been able to think up an even halfway believable story.
“Your majesty, I was endeavoring to spy out the disposition and number of your troops in order to bring the intelligence to the Frankish king Charles.”
“This is not a secret,” Desiderius replied. “I have reinforced Ivrea and Susa. He must come by one route or the other. I will be waiting for him.”
“So I saw,” Maeniel said.
The king nodded. He was older than Charles by some years, his dark hair was threaded with gray, and an air of weariness and doubt hung about him.
He will lose, Maeniel thought. I can see it in his face. He doesn’t have the self-assurance he should have to defeat the Frankish king. He doesn’t have the self-assurance any king must, to maintain his position. I have chosen the right side. Whatever my fate, this man is doomed.
“An honest answer,” Desiderius said.
“I know,” Maeniel said. “I couldn’t think of a good lie.”
A soft titter of laughter swept the church.
“
Very well,” Desiderius continued. “What then am I to think of the other stories told of you?”
“Oh,” Maeniel said. “What stories?” He tried to sound guileless. He didn’t quite succeed.
“That you are a powerful sorcerer in league with the devil, able to change your shape at will from man to beast and back again, and have come not to gain knowledge of my military plans, but to take my life,” the king said.
Maeniel took a deep breath and answered as well as he could. “My lord king, I have no designs on your life. I am a soldier, not a paid assassin. And I know nothing of the devil. Nor, if such a being exists, am I in his debt.”
Someone laughed.
Maeniel recognized Hugo. “Oh, well,” he said. “I thought you’d be here, Hugo. Why don’t you step out where I can see you?”
Hugo laughed again. “I think not.”
“You’re smart,” Maeniel said. “Because if I ever get my hands on you—”
“Be silent,” Desiderius said. “A clever answer, my lord Maeniel, but only a partial one. If you please—answer the whole question.”
“I am not a sorcerer,” Maeniel said. “And you may place what trust you like in the tales this deluded fool tells, but I would not lay a wager on the veracity of any statement coming from his lips.”
“Very well,” the king said. “Then you deny his charge?”
Maeniel felt the blood turn cold in his veins. The king lowered his eyes and wouldn’t meet his gaze. A trap, Maeniel thought. A trap. He was wearing the mantle they’d given him last night. Naptha. At a touch of the wax light in Hugo’s hand, it burst into flame.
The wolf took him with the full strength of mindless mortal terror as his clothing burst into flame. Maeniel’s fetters and flaming clothing landed in a heap on the church floor, and the gray wolf was restrained only by the iron collar around his neck.
The chain brought him up short and at midleap, and the captain of the king’s guard brought the butt of his spear down hard on the wolf’s skull. Hard enough to kill, but there was enough life left in the wolf’s body to bring him through the change and leave him lying on the church floor in the human shape, bleeding from both the nose and mouth and deeply unconscious.
The silver wolf woke to the tramp of feet on the bridge and then remembered there were no human feet within fifty miles, and yes, there were arches but no bridge. The dead, she thought. This ruin is a place of the dead, as Cumae was. She rose up woman without willing it and found herself looking at the dark world.
She could see the bridge as it once stood and, when she turned, the city forum with its marble square was intact, but all except the city was black. She could see no moon or stars but only the Roman cohort on the bridge: their commander and the men who followed. She was deeply puzzled by their appearance. They must be Roman, the temples and the forum all proclaimed a Roman place, but the armor and weapons they carried were archaic. Triple-ring breastplates, spears, single-edged chopping swords, long laminated wooden shields—the exteriors were painted but there were no colors in this world—helms with thick cheekpieces and feather crests. A wolf’s head bared its fangs at her from each shield. The centurion, the leader, carried no shield but wore three feather crests.
“I am,” Regeane asked, “with the dead?”
“Dead and forgotten,” the centurion said. He sounded proud of the fact.
“I am not dressed,” she said.
“I am not alive,” the centurion answered. “But I will lend you my mantle.” He pulled it off and tossed it up to her.
Regeane wrapped herself in the all-purpose garment and descended the steps. They led her to a guard room—unattended, to Regeane’s relief—and she turned through the door and walked out to the bridge that wasn’t there.
The centurion stood with his men. Looking at him, Regeane couldn’t repress a shudder. He was an eyeless, lipless mummy, the dried skin stretched tight across his bones. His men were no better. They each wore their death wounds: part of one’s face was simply missing, another had a terrible wound that nearly amputated his leg and a cut throat. Regeane tried not to look too closely at the rest.
“We held the bridge,” the centurion said, “while our commander and his son retreated. They avenged us on the Carthaginian. We are content, we are honored to keep the bridge. We struck away the wedge that held the rock that crushed our enemies. Rome became great. Had we not fallen, the west and all subsequent time would have been different. But we were asked and were willing to pay the price.”
“It’s dark here, though.” Regeane glanced away into what was, but for the bone white buildings of the bridge and town, an impenetrable darkness surrounding her and the soldiers. “Dark,” she repeated, “and so cold. Where are the moon and the stars, the wind, the midnight shapes of trees, the soft rush of water, and the silken feel of grass? You were men and you remember the sun.”
“Yes,” came the answer. “I remember the sun when it was not cruel.”
Regeane saw a vineyard sloping down to a lake that caught the colors of sunrise over misty rows of vines bejeweled with clusters of moonstone, amethyst, and sapphire fruit. Then the vision changed, and she saw a man dying in the sun on an X-shaped cross: the centurion. His eyes were gone and the boiling heat tightened the skin on his bones.
“I was the last. I cut the throats of the wounded, but the Carthaginian was angry that the Roman commander got away and I died as you saw. But my spirit lives on, a thing to ponder—and you summoned it. Sometimes we must build with boundless sorrow.”
“I can’t believe that,” Regeane whispered, but the Roman and his men were gone and the wolf sank into a deeper sleep. When she awoke she found herself looking out across the marshland’s open water at the rising sun. She was lying on one of the blocks that had floored the town forum and was wrapped in the stained, tattered remnants of a scarlet cloak.
This must once have been a cistern, Maeniel was thinking, like the prison in Rome. He’d seen it long ago on one of his journeys there. Seen it and smelled it: a hole in the ground. The prisoner stepped off into the pit. The executioner waited below. No executioner here this time, but he didn’t think the king would show any mercy. He sat up. His head ached, he was naked, there was dried blood on his face and chest.
He was wary, though. Still a little dizzy from the blow, he checked his immediate environment carefully with all his senses, wolf and human. He could just see.
The prison was in the form of a flat-bottomed bottle; high above, a round cover, about three feet across, was the only entrance he could see. The sides of the bottle widened, sloping outward from the entrance at the neck, and formed a round space about ten feet across at the bottom. It was covered with sand. Very soft sand. And then he saw something else that made his skin crawl. There were gratings, heavy ones, set into the walls on either side of the cell.
No, it hadn’t been a cistern. It was a cistern.
He rose to his knees. A voice on the other side of the grating asked, “Are you comfortable?”
He recognized the king’s voice. “Hardly,” Maeniel said. “It’s cold, I’m naked, and I could use a little wine and something to eat.”
“Too bad,” Desiderius said. “But you will just have to make do. At least unless you teach me how to do that trick.”
“What trick?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Please, don’t play the fool. The trick I saw you do—not only I, but half the town and the entire court. We all saw you change yourself into a wolf.”
Maeniel didn’t answer. He was silent.
“Amazing,” the king continued. “You won’t admit it.”
“No.”
“Man, the fact that you are alive now is a tribute only to my insatiable curiosity.”
“Indeed.”
“Certainly,” Desiderius answered. “The bishop can’t wait to burn you. The captain of my guard wants to have you strangled. Your friend Hugo made some suggestions; rather imaginative ones, I might add.”
“Predictab
le.”
“Yes, and equally lethal as the other suggestions, though somewhat more painful. After all, you strangled his father.”
“Yes, yes, I did; probably one of my more useful and virtuous actions. I cannot regret it.” Then he laughed. “I doubt if Hugo does either. I think he was more pleased than not to be rid of his bad-tempered, drunken, scheming sire. He was probably overjoyed to snatch up whatever wealth the vile old scoundrel was hoarding and flee the city. If you must know, the pope and I looked high and low for him, and he could by no means be found. He probably only discovered his bereavement when he woke up sober one morning and realized he had no more money. By all means, keep him near you. I would rather caress a viper.”
The king chuckled. “You are indeed a master of dissimulation. He warned me about that. But I, as you, digress. What is the trick of it? How do you become the wolf?”
“I do not—as you say—become the wolf. I am the wolf, only sometimes I seem to be a man. And in the interest of both truth and brevity, I will say now I cannot teach you how to skin turn because I don’t know how I do it myself. I simply do, and she who gave me my name and power didn’t provide an explanation.”
“It is from the demonic then? This power of yours?” The king sounded eager to have Maeniel incriminate himself.
“I know nothing of daemons. I have never met one. Nor do I quite know what you Christians mean by the word. I do say that if you label everything you don’t understand demonic, the world you see will be filled with evil.”
“You are not a Christian, then?”
“No.”
“Would you accept baptism, if given the opportunity?”
Maeniel was about to reply with a snarl of fury when his human side reined him in sharply. This chance was too good to miss. He’d already concluded there was no good way out of this cell. If he could persuade this king to believe he might be converted, the process of instruction and baptism might offer an opportunity to escape. Once without chains and in the open . . .
The Wolf King Page 18