“Yes,” Dulcinia said. “That’s what I thought, and Lucilla knew. He hasn’t many men, most are probably with his father awaiting the Frankish king. He took your mother as a hostage for his own safety.”
Avernia’s body lay in the kitchen on the table where they’d eaten breakfast only a few hours before. Her daughters were washing her, preparing her for the funeral.
“Dulcinia, will you come with me?” Ludolf asked. “We ride within the hour.”
“Yes, with all my heart.”
He went to the kitchen to comfort the weeping women and pay his last respects to Avernia. Dulcinia ran upstairs to dress.
True to Ludolf’s word, they rode out before noon. Even though most of the able-bodied men were with his father, Ludolf was able to muster twenty rather formidable graybeards who had allowed younger men to campaign with Ansgar.
Dulcinia found them a dangerous-looking group, possibly not as agile or high-spirited as the youngsters, but long in experience and grim fury. Adalgisus had murdered one of their own and kidnapped their lord’s wife. If they caught him, he would face an unpleasant reckoning.
They stopped at the monastery Temi. Ludolf minced no words with the father abbot. “I don’t care who he is,” he told the abbot. “He entered my house without my permission, took my mother and a guest of ours, and when one of my servants tried to stop him, he murdered her. I want my mother back. She has done him no harm, and he must be brought to book for his crimes.”
The abbot threw up his hands but was unable to do more than point out the general direction Adalgisus had taken, saying bitterly, “All he did was eat a lot, drink even more, then sit around—when he was not sleeping, that is—and demand to be waited upon. He didn’t confide in me about where he’d come from, what he was doing here, or where he was going. And if I’d known he was up to some mischief that involved your family, I’d have warned you, because as far as I’m concerned, an unhappy neighbor is bound to be more trouble than a distant king, and your father is well aware of my sentiments. And you should be also. If you’re going after him, I’ll lend you fresh mounts.”
Ludolf nodded, took the horses, and left. Fortunately, the road Adalgisus had taken soon narrowed. It was little traveled and the fresh tracks of a group of horsemen had to have been theirs. The road led into a mountainous wilderness of scrub oak, willow, golden broom, wild rose, and briar. The countryside had a certain strange beauty, the yellow broom flowers twined with the white, thorny ones of briar, and here and there the wild pink rose and blossoming pear seemed to explode among the thickets of oak and still-bare willow.
Dulcinia was a fine rider, but this trail challenged even her skills. Once one of the horses stepped into a hole and tossed his rider into a mound of briars. The horse was only lightly injured, the rider more uncomfortable than hurt, but the gelding had to be unsaddled and left to find his way back while his rider was given one of the remounts they’d been supplied with at the monastery.
“One thing good about this,” the blacksmith said to Ludolf. “They can’t have left the road. We won’t have to hunt them in the countryside.”
The road gained altitude quickly but when they reached the notch where it turned down, Dulcinia saw that a river wound through the narrow valley.
“Odds are,” the blacksmith said, “he will have taken to water.”
Ludolf nodded. “Want to bet his trail vanishes at the river?”
“No,” the blacksmith said. “It’s a sure thing.”
It did.
Stella was a good rider. For that Lucilla was thankful. She was able to keep up. Adalgisus was clearly frightened. Lucilla cursed her luck and promised herself she would do everything possible to keep up his courage. He was a fool and therefore dangerous, but a terrified fool didn’t bear thinking about. For one thing, they were traveling too fast. The pace Adalgisus set would wear out the horses before nightfall. Unless he knew a convenient spot where they could get remounts, he would have to go someplace where the stock could be watered and fed and rested, or most of them would soon be on foot.
On foot in a wilderness, Lucilla thought, observing the overgrown countryside around her. This area toward the mountains had never been thickly settled even in Roman times; now it was deserted. Even brigands here wouldn’t prosper—not unless they had a taste for robbing each other.
Not long after midday, they reached the river and drew rein.
“Stop,” Eberhardt told Adalgisus. “Our mounts were not the best cattle when we started out, now they are all but foundered.”
Stella’s and Lucilla’s mounts were in the best condition. The women were lighter than the men, but even their horses were lathered; and Lucilla had noticed spurring had little effect on her horse now. At least five of the party had straggled for some miles behind as the horses stumbled and slowed on the rocky ground.
“I suppose,” Adalgisus said, looking at his companions. “I suppose I’d best do that.”
“Besides,” Eberhardt said, “we can use the water to cover our tracks.”
Then the two men moved away, speaking together in low tones. Lucilla dismounted, loosed her saddle girth, and began to walk her mount in a circle to cool him off. Stella called out to Lucilla to help her dismount. Stella was a small woman, but once on the ground she followed suit.
Lucilla noticed some of the men with Adalgisus simply allowed their mounts to drink without the cooldown. “Oh, yes,” Lucilla whispered. “They will soon be afoot.”
“I’m sore,” Stella said. “I used to go hunting with Ansgar and hawking with Gerald almost every week, but I haven’t done so in some time. Son of a bitch, I’ll probably have saddle sores before the day is out.”
Then she called Adalgisus several foul names in Roman street argot. “I’m sorry, Lucilla. I’m really sorry I wrote him about you, but when I saw you, I panicked. You see, when Ansgar plucked me from that brothel in Ravenna, it was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. I simply couldn’t believe my good fortune, and I was sure you’d share my past—what are they, misdeeds?—with him.”
“I don’t call them misdeeds,” Lucilla said. “Men act as if women don’t have to eat. What in the hell else do we have to sell, if not our bodies?”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Stella said. “I believe they think we should preserve our chastity at the cost of our lives, but I must say both you and I did a lot better than just find enough to eat. You gained Hadrian’s company and protection, and I was rather comfortably kept by several high church officials.”
“I told you not to trust that bastard Aldric. What happened in Ravenna?” Lucilla asked.
“He sold me into a brothel. His, uh, affairs didn’t prosper as he wanted them to. The archbishop called him a turncoat and told him that a man who betrayed one master would turn on another. This was true, truer than true. Only the one he turned on was me. My sale brought him the passage money to Constantinople. Being sold was the most mortifying and humiliating experience of my entire life.”
“Not to mention inconvenient and damned dangerous,” Lucilla said. “But I suppose a stroke of ill fortune presages a complete reversal of the same bad luck. The wheel turns,” she continued. “Hecuba regina. We all ride it.”
“Who’s Hecuba?” Stella grumbled. “I cannot think it was a good thing when Hadrian taught you to read. Ever since, you have been baffling and annoying your friends with odd bits of arcane knowledge and mysterious quotations.”
“Hecuba was a queen who ended her life as a slave,” Lucilla snapped. “I merely meant nothing is permanent except change.”
“See?” Stella was annoyed. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
“You were telling me about Ansgar?” Lucilla reminded her.
“Yes, well, no sooner was I down then I was up because Ansgar came to the brothel. We ‘visited’ a few times,” Stella said primly. “And then he told that thick-witted pander Milo, the owner of the brothel, that he didn’t want me taking any other customers. H
e wanted to be the only man in my life. Of course, that stinking pig Milo wanted me to cheat, but I wouldn’t.”
“That must have been a battle,” Lucilla said.
“It was, but I won. I know that sort of arrangement is usually dishonest, but a wealthy lord like Ansgar—I didn’t want to lose him. Oh, no, I was thinking, no chances on that.”
Lucilla took the reins from Stella’s hand and led the horses to water. Stella knelt on the bank, drank from her cupped hands, and splashed water on her cheeks.
“He was wealthy even then?”
“Yes,” Stella said, straightening up. “He’d tossed that rapacious louse Trudo out of the town and turned the bandit’s ill-gotten gains to his own uses.”
“One of which was freeing you from the brothel.”
“Yes, and it’s a good thing I didn’t cheat because only a month after we met, I found out I was pregnant.”
“Ludolf?”
“Yes. Oh, thank God we got Adalgisus away from the city; I was so afraid for my son! Look at the terribly easy way he stabbed Avernia. Lucilla, do you think she is dead?”
Stella looked up at Lucilla, and Lucilla turned away to fuss with part of the horse’s head stall. The plea in Stella’s eyes was almost unbearable. She and Avernia had been together so long.
“I don’t know,” Lucilla answered. “For all I know, she might have been only slightly injured. Listen to me, Stella. When curd brain and his friend who does his thinking for him come back, do you want me to try to persuade them to leave you here?”
Stella glanced around. They had passed the last human habitation, a ruined farmhouse, some miles back. Both sides of the river were thick, overgrown with brush and small trees.
“Oh, God, no. Not in this horrible wilderness.”
“Your son might be following,” Lucilla said.
“Oh, in heaven’s name, suppose he isn’t? If Adalgisus leaves me here, I will die. Die on the spot. Don’t, please. Don’t make such a ghastly suggestion to him.”
Lucilla sighed. “Stella, I won’t do or say anything that will make things worse for you, but I’d rather take my chances in this wilderness, as you call it, than with Sir Lackwit and his grab-ass friend. By the way, does tall, dark, and stupid really know you from Ravenna? Or can I call his bluff sometime?”
“Oh, God, Lucilla. I don’t know. They . . . they were all the same to me. They say it’s not a sin if you don’t enjoy it. Well, if that’s true, I didn’t do any sinning at all in Ravenna except with Ansgar.” She smiled a little at the memory, and it transformed her face the way a ray of sunlight brightens a flower.
Lucilla felt her heart ache with sorrow. Oh, God, I am a terrible woman, she thought. A vengeful woman to have begun the whole thing. And then she decided her own opinion of herself was probably correct and regret was the most futile of all emotions.
Just then Adalgisus and Eberhardt returned and they got under way again. As Lucilla thought, they rode into the streambed. The water was shallow but the footing so rocky that they couldn’t make any speed. Lucilla kept hoping they would continue to follow the river for a few more miles and give Ludolf time to catch them, but they didn’t. Still, one thing heartened her. Two of the horses gave out, and four of Adalgisus’s friends had to be left behind. Not enough, but something. She saw Stella’s face brighten. I hope, she thought, when she saw the fear in Adalgisus’s eyes, I hope he gets what’s coming to him. If I can arrange it, he will.
Chiara was awakened by being shaken violently. “Yes, stop that,” she told the spirit. “It’s not even dawn yet, and besides,” she continued indignantly as she tried to burrow down more deeply under the covers, “what did you do to Hugo? You had his body in the church last night.”
“Hugo is dead!” the spirit said.
This did bring Chiara’s head out from under the covers. “You killed him,” she said accusingly to the spirit.
“I did not,” was the indignant denial. “The lightning brought about his death. And would have killed you and your father also, if I hadn’t warned you to stay on the porch.”
“I don’t believe you,” Chiara shouted.
There was a sound that began like the hissing, spitting noises a fire makes when rain falls into it, then rose in volume, taking on deeper and deeper tones until it ended with the explosive roar of an angry bear.
Then Chiara found the covers pulled off, and she was unceremoniously yanked to her feet by an iron grip fastened on her upper arm.
“Up—up—up! And get dressed. Now! You and your father must flee the city.”
Chiara replied with a screech of fury. “My modesty, my reputation.”
“Damn your modesty and reputation. Neither will do you any good if you are dead. Up!”
She was on her feet, staggering toward the clothes chest in the corner. “Wp-o-o-o-oth!” Chiara gave another yell.
“Abomination and damnation,” the spirit roared. “I didn’t touch you. What’s the matter now?”
“The floor is cold, my feet are bare. I’ll catch my death.”
“Shut up and stop screeching. Get dressed.”
Chiara was lifted by the scruff of the neck and deposited across the room next to the clothes chest.
“Get dressed now!”
“Will you please leave, and don’t try to cheat. I can tell when you’re in the room, and I won’t pull off my nightgown until you’re out of here,” Chiara shouted.
Just then the door flew open. Armine stood there, candle in hand. It was a fairly bright light, and Armine could see the entire room in the glow. There was a bed, the clothes chest, and nothing else. No one could be concealed here, but undeniably, his daughter was talking to someone—speaking in a loud voice, in fact.
Chiara paused with a gasp, clothes forgotten. “What are you doing here?”
“Never mind,” Armine said. “To whom are you speaking?”
“Oh,” Chiara said. “N-now see what you’ve done?” She spoke into the empty air.
Armine made the sign of the cross.
“Damn you for a superstitious fool,” the spirit yelled, and boxed his ears violently.
Armine sat down hard on the floor.
“Get up, you idiot,” the spirit shouted. “On your feet, too.” He jerked Armine up into a standing position.
Armine gave a gurgling yell.
“Now, you stop, you just stop. You leave my father alone, you hear me? I can’t think what you hope to accomplish by such high-handed tactics. All you’re doing is frightening him.”
The spirit paused. “Even now the king is deciding your fate, Chiara. He is angry. Hugo had told him how you rescued the wolf. He’s a wild man.”
“Who?” Chiara asked, completely bewildered.
“The king, damn it. The king,” the spirit shouted.
“Who? What? How? Chiara, are you speaking to someone? Someone I cannot see?” Armine demanded.
“Now stop, both of you.” Chiara stamped her bare foot on the cold floor and hurt it. She scooted back to the bed, sat on the edge, folded her arms and closed her eyes, and thrust one small, determined chin forward. “If you both don’t stop badgering me now, I’ll never speak to either of you again.”
Armine edged cautiously into the room, his eyes darting about a bit wildly. “Chiara,” he asked, “is there someone in here I can’t see?”
Chiara’s eyes flew open. “Yes, he’s Hugo’s friend.”
Armine nodded. He moved cautiously over to the clothes chest, candle in hand, and asked, “Is there anyone sitting here?”
“No,” Chiara said. “At least—” She, too was looking around. “—at least I don’t think he sits.”
“I don’t.”
“He doesn’t.”
“Yes, well, I do,” Armine said, and sat down. “Now, Chiara, tell me what’s going on. First, I know that wasn’t Hugo who entered the church last night. I’m not sure who or even—” He glanced around nervously. “—what he was but that wasn’t Hugo. The man was a worm. He could ne
ver manage the look of arrogant self-assurance on that creature’s face. And the tender way he assisted me in getting you up to our rooms last night wasn’t in any way characteristic of Hugo. Nor was the fact that he was stone cold sober and, moreover, assisted the bishop and myself with the wounded for most of the evening, and he remained sober, too. He ate a little bread and cheese, refused wine, and went to bed. Hugo? No. That’s incredible.”
The spirit began laughing.
“He’s laughing,” Chiara said morosely. “He laughs a lot, especially at me.”
“Nice that he has a sense of humor,” Armine said. “Now, tell me what’s on his mind.”
“He says the king is going to arrest us . . . not us—”
“You,” the spirit said.
“Me,” Chiara told her father. Chiara twisted her fingers in her lap. “It seems . . .”
“There’s no time for explanations,” the spirit said. “We must leave. The king is even now writing out the arrest orders. His counselors are trying to dissuade him from creating a bloodbath, but he won’t listen. The more fool he. The only reason the palace guard isn’t in this room right now is because the soldiers he sent for—they are at Susa—haven’t arrived yet. When they do, he will make a clean sweep of all those he considers his enemies. The bishop is already in chains, poor old man. If you don’t flee now, you both could well find yourselves exploring that bottle in the church basement, the one where the wolf was imprisoned. Now tell him, Chiara; if you love him, warn him now.”
“Father,” Chiara said rather breathlessly, and then repeated the spirit’s statements word for word.
Armine listened. Wax ran down from the candle in his hand and splashed on his fingers. “Ouch,” was all he said, then tilted the candle so the wax went on the floor. He continued listening intently.
When she was finished speaking, Armine hurried to the window. The palace was full of lights, one in almost every window.
When he turned away, he said, “Get dressed. Now. Hurry. Where is Gimp?” he said into the air.
A second later Chiara said, “He’s gone and—” She waved her hands. “—the bear—that’s what I call him, the bear—says he took what’s left of Hugo with him.” She looked up again and listened. “He says they’re probably crossing the river now. He says hurry. He’ll saddle the horses.”
The Wolf King Page 31