“There, I’ll quiet her down,” he said.
Stella didn’t scream. She couldn’t. Lucilla watched in horror as she doubled over in agony, the color left her face, and her lips, ears, and nose turned blue, and then she fell, landing on her side, curled into a tight little ball of agony.
Lucilla had reached the woodpile. She picked up the stub of an oak branch and swung it as hard as she could at Dagobert’s head. He sat down on the floor, blood pouring from a cut on his forehead. Still on the floor near the bed, Adalgisus was trying to get up. This exercise was complicated by the fact that his overloaded stomach chose this moment to disgorge its contents all over the floor.
Dagobert was blinded by his own blood and fuddled by drunkenness. He was still trying to get to his feet, but-possibly a little smarter or a bit more agile than either Eberhardt or Adalgisus—he was in flight. Lucilla saw he was halfway out the door.
Adalgisus remained on his knees, retching violently, while Lucilla hit Eberhardt over the top of the head with her improvised club. Then she hit him in the face, breaking his nose and putting out one of his eyes. She followed this by knocking out most of his teeth with the next strike, and then she managed to break one of his kneecaps. She had to terminate her attack because Adalgisus was up and after her with his sword.
He drove it at her using a simple thrust as he had with Avernia, but the difference was that Lucilla wasn’t Avernia, and Adalgisus was no longer sober. She sidestepped the thrust and smacked his wrist with her club. He screamed in agony.
Lucilla screamed back, cursing him with the vilest obscenities she knew. Then she said, “Look, pig, look what you and your friends have done. You have killed Stella.”
He stared at the slender, once-beautiful blond woman lying on the floor near the hearth. Stella’s skin was gray. She was cold, clammy to the touch. Lucilla knew this because she was on her knees beside Stella. A thread of blood was running from her mouth out onto the floor. Both arms were still wrapped around her stomach and when Lucilla tried to touch her there, she gave the most dreadful cry Lucilla had ever heard.
“No, don’t move me. Don’t. I’ll die. He broke something inside me. I never felt such terrible pain before. Help me, Lucilla. Help me. I’m dying.”
She didn’t sound frightened but only astonished at her condition. Lucilla looked up at Adalgisus.
“Well, you have played the fool for good and all now, haven’t you?”
He backed away from Lucilla, holding the sword in his left hand while he tried to make the sign of the cross with his right. Just then they both heard the screams and shouts coming from the abbey’s church.
Matrona approached the pool in wolf form. As always, she heard voices. Some of them she recognized; others were strange to her and sometimes she was certain they were not simply language but other forms used to transmit information by beings that could not be classified as human. The languages also were a mystery. She knew a great many and her mind tracked them in their changes over time.
Her own people’s language was still spoken now by many different peoples, but it had altered so much over the centuries, the millennia, that it would have been gibberish to its originators. She herself was sometimes slow spoken because her mind idly followed the road through time taken by a concept molded into speech by creatures who first used words to impose order and thought on the continuum, the raw data of life itself.
A thing of power, language. Far more powerful than the men and women who used it so casually would ever understand. Matrona listened to what the voices said. Sometimes they offered warnings or pointed out a path she should take. But most of the time they simply commented on the problems of their particular world or cried out in grief or in triumph over difficulty or in positive achievement.
Now, at this moment, a woman sang a lullaby to a baby, accompanied by the whispering trill of a wooden pipe. Matrona recognized the voice as her mother’s. Once the voices haunted her as she had resisted the omnipresent flow of change all around her, but now she accepted her lot as a designated spectator to the human journey and no longer suffered the sense of loss she had known when she realized she would be sundered from all her loves by the inexorable flow of events. She, as Maeniel, had taken up a position outside of time, and unlike him or Regeane, she accepted her portion. By her standards, they were both . . . well, young.
Then she heard Gu! Chanting. Long ago he had taught her the calendar and how to count the years. She made the sound that was his name with the wolf’s tongue.
All the languages since then had lost that sound, but it was notable that a wolf could make it, though men had forgotten how. But then he was a master of wolves and in the bleak savage winter of the world, he had run with the packs to live.
“Gu!” she called again but there was no answer. No, he was gone with the rest.
Matrona the mother. We remember when beast and man were one. I am the talisman. I was their talisman. The mountains roared and smoke blinded the sun’s eye and the endless winter descended on the earth.
It was our doom. We were careless then. Gu told me. We lived in the sun. We plucked fruit from the trees, the waters were filled with life. We followed the rivers and streams in the dry years. Then, when the rains came, the whole earth was ours and we took joy in its abundance. We needed no clothing because the fur pattern at our groins, head and neck was enough. We were fair with it as cats are, marked with the fine silkiness, gold, black, roan, or silver. It was all we could desire and we caressed each other’s bodies without fear, to ask for food or love or even forgiveness and comfort.
The wide savannas were an endless source of beauty and nourishment not simply for the body but the spirit also. Flights of birds darkened the sun. Running herds of horned and hooved beasts rivaled the very thunder of the storms. Trees bent down under the weight of fruit and flowers, offering them to our willing hands.
Until the mountains spoke.
And the long winters came. The long, cold winters.
Matrona couldn’t remember the smiling light, the perpetual warmth. She doubted if Gu could either. Many knew the tales of perpetual light and the unending largess of the mother of all life, but they were just that, only tales. A paradise lost. She herself had been born in the farthest south after her people had followed the herds from the north on their annual migration, to hunt them in the gorges and depths of the heavy forest near the sea. They were allowed this margin of land beyond the frozen earth; the ice that gripped the hills, the mountains, and even the plain was held back by the water, the only water they knew that never froze, the roaring sea.
And in the shallow space constricted by glaciers, they could survive the winter until the next time of testing, the long journey when they followed the herds north at the beginning of spring. So one fine spring when they were preparing for the arduous journey into the north, Matrona had been given to the wolves.
Gu had seen the shapes in the fire and the lot fell on her.
She went to the wolves and they accepted her as they had once accepted Gu and named him. So they accepted her and named her. And she ran with the pack to the north as her people did. To the steppes, and there she met the black wolf. They fought.
By then Matrona, hardened by long runs with the pack, fought with the rest for her portion of the kill; and hardened to cold and fatigue by the constant frozen day and night with the pack in the wake of the herds, wearing only her skin, she was at least as strong as any of the wolves. She took no nonsense even from the leader; she was a dangerous opponent for any wolf ever born.
But this one had been special, different from the rest. A last, lone survivor of the ruling pack, the organization of dire wolves who had ruled before her people were even thought of, much less were. The dire. She came to claim her yearly sacrifice, to call Matrona to final darkness and everlasting cold. And now Matrona wore her skin, and her soul looked out through Matrona’s eyes at the pool near morning.
Matrona shook herself as if trying to be rid of the mem
ories that clung around her spirit like cobwebs among the trees, and gazed down into the water. There were no warnings—this time. Sometimes the voices she heard were agitated and disturbed. They told her the road was dangerous or that something might happen. She wondered what path Regeane had taken and then heard her voice.
“Is your love a collar and a chain?”
Matrona smiled and slipped into the water. She also came to the same strange forest where Regeane landed, but by now the sun was up and the air warm.
As human she swam across the lake amidst the trees to the falls and studied the same gorge choked with the roots from the monster trees that seemed to floor the entire world. Matrona had been here before. Some scarlet creatures like birds skimmed the waters below the falls taking—what? Insects? Matrona had never known.
Up and up the giant trees rose, tops lost in the clouds before any side branch was to be seen. As Regeane had, she turned wolf in the shallows and started downstream, letting the silence soak into her. Unlike most humans, she did not habitually think in words. In her world, among wind-blown forests near the sea’s margins where she had been born, the word was used to amplify the unending communication of the flexible dance of life over the body. She had not known or needed words when she lived among the wolves, or even after she fought and killed the dire wolf. After Gu came, she had not needed to speak to them or him. So she respected the silence and it brought her news.
The morning wind was tearing to ragged shreds the high mist that concealed the upper portions of the trees. The forest whispered, then spoke aloud to the changing air. The silver-barked trees moved, clattering a little as their meshed branches on the umbrellalike tops struck each other lightly, the sound a timpani of life and delight.
Another night is over.
It is morning.
The splashing of the black wolf’s feet in the water spoke whole volumes of haste, urgency. The questions of mobile living things.
She was here.
But she is gone.
She ate a . . . shimmer.
But no harm done.
Among the misty isles of trees, drops of condensation from the night mist fell like rain, slaking the thirst of the ferns and even more primitive plants that hung from holdfasts on the tree bark or nested in the soil caught between the armorlike roots that covered the soil with no openings between them.
A tree died the day she came.
We . . . mourn.
A vast sigh.
We . . . mourn.
She left us at the lake.
Shimmer. And the scarlet birds danced over the water.
Or were they birds?
Shimmer. The forest spoke. Four foot. Two foot.
Matrona recognized her own name.
Two foot. Four foot.
Our beloved daughter of silence.
I will go beyond the lake. I must find her.
Strange thought . . . speed. Hurry . . . , the trees mused.
Matrona picked up her pace.
She is in the water. We hear her. Footsteps. She ate the shimmer . . . fruit, cress . . . took part of us into herself. She will return.
Maeniel didn’t follow the river as Regeane had. He knew of a Roman road. It led, as most Roman roads did, straight across the marsh and made travel very easy.
Disgusted with himself for allowing his own capture and imprisonment, he set a fast pace, wanting to return to the king as quickly as possible. Regeane was hard put to keep up and she knew he must still be angry with her about their argument the night before. Though they seemed reconciled, she felt the quarrel wasn’t really over. He wouldn’t yield one inch to her, and she continued to feel wronged by him.
When he spotted some waterfowl, ducks with dark feathers and brilliant green heads, traveling in family groups with fuzzy ducklings paddling behind them, he froze into immobility, preparing to make a snack of mother and baby duck both.
Regeane felt disgusted and even the wolf was annoyed. So she broke cover and startled them into flight. The ducks exploded around his face in a flurry of wings and loud alarm cries. As they fled, he swung around and his jaws snapped shut less than an inch from her face.
She recognized this for what it was, a form of intimidation, and stood her ground as he glared at her. She was no match for him and had discovered over the brief time of their marriage that almost nothing else was either. Certainly none of the pack he had gathered around him could match him for sheer lethal ferocity as man or wolf, but oddly, he wasn’t nearly as ready as a human male might be to try to overawe her with sheer physical might.
The females of the pack had their own hierarchy. Regeane wasn’t at the top of it. Matrona was. But Regeane was a strong second and learning the ropes quickly from Matrona. And one of the lessons was to demand the respect that was her due. Even from him.
So the staring contest ended with him turning away.
And again she fell in behind him.
For the next few miles the road was submerged by the spring floods. No one remained to tend the ditches that once drained it. So the two wolves found themselves swimming, at times wading through mud. There were snakes. Regeane was indifferent to them, but to pay him back for attacking the ducklings she pretended to be preparing to eat one—behavior that raised his hackles and drew a savage snarl of disgust from him.
Regeane looked up from the wiggling reptile and gave him a look of innocent astonishment, one so meltingly tender that he divined her purpose at once and stalked away stiff-legged with his nose in the air. The snake, somewhat distressed and conveying its fear in rapid snake, the language of movement, slithered away quickly and gave a last tongue flick and an indignant neck curve—that was very unkind of you—and vanished into a thick stand of pickerel weed showing the first of its spring flower spikes.
They were united, however, in their feeling about frogs. Both thought them absolutely delicious, so they strolled along, dining as they went.
At length the road resurfaced and the going became easier, though there were fewer succulent frogs to be found. The ground began to rise. It was here they crossed the trail of Armine, Chiara, Hugo, and Gimp. They had only two men with them and were pursued by a half-dozen soldiers and three dogs.
Regeane thought in horror, Too many for us. But Maeniel turned onto the trail seemingly without a second thought.
Yes, Regeane remembered. The girl saved his life. They must try to help. Maeniel broke into a run. Regeane followed.
The bear knew he was in a running fight. He’d become aware they were being followed when Armine and Chiara crossed the river. Gimp was waiting at the ill-omened ford where the family had been killed.
Regeane had observed, The water must be high by now at the crossing. It was.
Hugo’s body was flung across a saddle, belly down.
The bear swore.
Chiara heard him but for once said nothing. Both she and Armine were frightened. Gimp was, as usual, dozing. He managed this even on horseback.
The bear brought him awake with a loud roar. Then he repossessed Hugo’s body. He slid off the horse, staggered, and had to circle the horse three times to work out the kinks. But then he vaulted into the saddle.
Armine’s escort noticed almost nothing. They were hideously hungover, and Chiara, Armine, and the bear were pretty sure they would be worthless in a fight. All they could hope for was that the king would be too busy massacring his other enemies to give much thought to them.
Vain hope.
The bear detected the pursuit before the rest. He left the trail, leading them to the Roman road through the marsh. Armine started to protest. He spurred his horse up to where the bear—as Hugo—was leading the party.
“Where—”
“They’re after us,” the bear replied.
“Oh, no, I’m not worried about myself, but Chiara . . . When I think what might happen to her—”
“I won’t let it happen,” the bear said. “I won’t let them take her.”
“Promise?”
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“I give you my word,” the bear answered, and then a look of ferocity crossed his face, a look that Hugo could never have originated. “I’ll kill anyone who lays one hand on her. I promise. I vow, I swear I will.
“Now you, Armine, make sure this carcass stays on the horse while I visit our pursuers.”
Hugo’s body slumped. Armine got a firm grip on his arm.
The bear never knew how he moved, but he could do so quickly. In a few moments he saw Desiderius’s men. They, too, had turned on the Roman road. A footman had charge of the three dogs. They were straining at their leashes. Killers. War dogs. Big, dangerous, vicious. The dog handler carried a whip. They seemed to respect it and him, but they lunged in fury at everything else, including the mounted warriors accompanying them, when they approached too closely.
The bear disregarded them. He’d recovered from his fight with Regeane and Matrona, but it had taken him some weeks. He had been drained near to death or dormancy when he found Gimp and then Hugo. The guardians of the tomb had saved him from—death?—dormancy?—who knows. Some form of nonexistence. A fierce battle with the dogs right now might deplete his energies beyond the point of being able to protect Chiara and her father. And, oddly, this was what worried him the most. The fear that she might fall prey to Desiderius and his mercenary army.
Eventually the king would have her killed, but before she died, the bright, brave little spirit would be broken in the cruelest possible way. The first guilt the bear had ever known crawled in his soul at the memory of the suffering of the “abbot’s” prisoners at that human monster’s hands. He was being paid out now for his callous support of the madman’s desires, but the creature had loved him, worshiped him. This was his connection to the realm of light: the emotions of the creatures whom he was able to make his own. Like the abbot, Hugo, Gimp, and others he had preyed on over the centuries, the millennia, in fact. He could not live without their love, awe, hatred, fear, pain, and yes, even joy.
The Wolf King Page 33