The Wolves of Paris

by Michael Wallace

  How did they get inside? They must have tricked their way in. Like they’d fooled her into opening the door. Courtaud was well known to her husband’s servants and few of them knew what had happened. So the wolves had bluffed their way past a servant at the door, killed him before he could cry a warning, then made their way down the hallway, past the kitchen, and up the stairs. Their scent must be all through the house. Where were her dogs? Why didn’t they come to help?

  “Where is Rigord?” she asked.

  Courtaud lifted his head and howled. Hatred and rage flooded over her and she staggered backward.

  Changed us. Hate. Destroy.

  “What?” she said. “Isn’t that what you wanted all along, to change? Didn’t you want that?”

  Trapped. Cannot go back. Kill him.

  Understanding bubbled up and some of her fear fell away. “You can’t return to human form, can you?” A high laugh started in her throat and burst out.

  Enemy. Betrayer.

  “When I corrupted his transformation, he must have passed it along to you. That fool changed you into wolves without warning. And now you’re trapped. Did you kill him, is that what happened?”

  No. Enemy. Betrayer.

  “You are trapped in a wolf’s body,” she said with some satisfaction. “You can’t change back.”

  He snarled. Growls sounded deep in the other wolves’ chests.

  “And so you killed him?” she asked. “Or did he escape?”

  The three wolves fell into snarling. One of the smaller ones howled and Courtaud turned on it, shoving his snout in, biting and snapping until it fell back with a whimper. For a moment she thought there would be a fight between the three. Through it, she heard their howling thoughts.

  Escaped.

  Hate, kill.

  Betrayer.

  But through it came other thoughts. Hunger. The taste of human flesh. The joy of burying a muzzle into someone’s belly and coming out with jaws filled with steaming guts, even as the victim screamed and thrashed, still alive. Lucrezia clamped her hands over her ears, trying to get the awful thoughts out.

  “Leave me alone! I’m a highborn lady—Lord Nemours will hunt you to the ends of the earth.”

  Let him try, came Courtaud’s thoughts. They came through clearly now. The fighting among the wolves had stopped. We fear nothing.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  Rigord claims you for himself. I shall cheat him of his revenge. You are mine. Then I will hunt him down and kill him, too.

  The wolf tensed, as if to spring. The other two snarled, and the hair rose on their backs. Lucrezia saw her death in their eyes.

  “Wait!” she said. The words tumbled out. “I can help you. I know how to cure it.”

  It was pure bluff. She’d poured through every book in Rigord’s library. There was nothing. The only cure she knew was death. A spear through its heart. A knife, a sword, a blow to the head.

  Courtaud stopped. Lies.

  “No, I swear it. I can turn you back into a man.”

  No man. No wolf. Wolf and man.

  “A wolf man, I mean. To change back and forth when you want.”

  Courtaud hesitated.

  “It is true! I have the books. I know the incantations.”

  Something flashed in his eyes. He didn’t believe her lie, and he was going to kill her. Slowly, painfully. Then the two smaller wolves turned their heads. Courtaud growled a question.

  The other two cast their thoughts in a howling jumble. No words came through, but Lucrezia understood enough. They had picked up the scent of dogs.

  At that moment Cicero and Tullia burst into the room. They hurled themselves at Courtaud. The other two wolves joined the fight. Lucrezia grabbed a poker from where it hung next to the stone hearth and came around swinging. She struck one of the wolves across the foreleg and was lifting the poker for another blow when Martin burst in, panting.

  “By God, what has possessed those curs?” he said, then he saw the wolves. He cried out and waded in, boots kicking.

  Fly!

  At Courtaud’s warning, the wolves broke from the fight. One fell behind, limping. One foreleg bent funny and wouldn’t carry his weight—it was the one Lucrezia had struck with the poker. Tullia went for its throat. Cicero tore after the other two, his thunderous bark echoing down the corridor. Lucrezia wanted to call him back, but she needed to help Tullia, who had everything she could handle with the injured wolf. Lucrezia jabbed with the poker while Martin went in with his fists and boots.

  The blows distracted the wolf. Tullia got up under its defenses and clamped her massive jaws on its throat. The injured wolf thrashed and struggled. Tullia shook her head viciously back and forth. The wolf shuddered twice and lay still.

  Martin whistled and Lucrezia cried out, but Cicero didn’t return. They ran through the house, rousing any servants who had slept through the ruckus. They reached the front doors to find a terrified chambermaid in her nightgown, who said two wolves had shot past her into the night, pursued by the mastiff. A dead footman lay by the door with his stomach torn open.

  Lucrezia was barefoot, undressed, but she snatched the maid’s torch and was ready to run into the night after her dog when Martin stopped her.

  “There’s nothing you can do, my lady. You’ll never catch them.”

  “But Cicero—”

  “He’ll be back. He’s a smart one, he’ll run them off, chase them into the river maybe. They’ll drown in the icy waters.”

  She bit her lip and stared into the darkened alley outside her front door, hoping he was right. But Cicero never did come back.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Lorenzo listened to Lucrezia’s story in silence as she guided him through the streets of the Paris. They’d left the exhausted horses at the priory and continued on foot toward the Petit Pont where it crossed the Seine, on their way to Lord Nemours’s manor.

  He didn’t blame her—why would she think that? She was fighting them the best way she knew. Everything she’d done had been to stop the violence, not to spread it. Nevertheless, she seemed anguished at every new detail she shared. He wanted to embrace her when she told how the guard opened the gibbet to release the body of her brave and loyal dog into her arms.

  “So you think,” Lorenzo began after she’d fallen silent, “that Courtaud and your husband are enemies? Could they have patched up their differences?”

  “My husband had dark hair and a black beard. He turned into a huge, black wolf. I’ve seen gray wolves, brown wolves, even smaller, blackish wolves, and of course Courtaud and his ruddy pelt—but no wolf so big or dark as Rigord the night he changed.”

  “Maybe he’s dead,” Lorenzo said, grasping.

  “No. I think there are two separate wolf packs.”

  Two wolf packs—it was a horrifying conclusion. Not least because of the rapid spread of these devils. There must be twenty already. If they weren’t stopped soon, it would take an army to beat them back.

  “I don’t think Courtaud was lying,” she continued. “He was enraged—that part was real. And they were going to murder me that night. They had no reason to lie.”

  Most of the traffic that clogged the bridge was leaving the Cité, not entering. People fleeing the island, and perhaps Paris altogether. There were mule-drawn carts loaded with possessions, together with dozens of people on foot, baskets strapped to their shoulders. People clutched handkerchiefs to their mouths against the bad air said to be circling through the dank winter vapors, spreading the pox. Old women carried crucifixes in their thin, bent fingers, and a procession of twenty or thirty Benedictine monks chanted in Latin.

  Whispers followed Lorenzo and Lucrezia as they fought their way against the current.

  “Where is she going?”

  “It’s Lady d’Lisle.”

  “Look, Mama! Look at the beautiful lady.”

  “My lady,” a man said. “Do you need passage out of the city?”

  He was a finely dressed nob
leman with his wife and two sons, sitting in the back of a carriage drawn by two skittish horses.

  “Lord Trousseau, Lady Trousseau,” she acknowledged. “Thank you, but I’ve made my own arrangements.”

  “Very well,” he said. “We shall be at our castle in Étampes, should you need accommodations close to the city.”

  “Maybe you should have accepted his offer,” Lorenzo said, as they passed through the gatehouse and onto the island. “You might be safer behind castle walls.”

  “It didn’t help us at Lord Nemours’s, and anyway, it wouldn’t be right to put that man and his family at risk. I’m marked, remember? Wherever I go, the wolves follow.”

  “But if you give me the tip of Courtaud’s tail, and the dagger you used on Rigord, they’ll follow me instead.”

  Lucrezia stopped. “Lorenzo, having you by my side means more than I can say. You give me courage. No, I can’t face this alone, but I will face it. I’m responsible for the bloodshed, and I shall do what is necessary to stop it.”

  Impulsively, he took her hands, not caring that they stood in the middle of the street, with people staring. Lucrezia’s eyes widened slightly and this gave him the courage to blurt the thought that had been in his mind since he and Marco crossed the Alps several weeks earlier.

  “Come back with me to Italy.”

  “Lorenzo . . . ”

  “We will face these wolves together—I won’t leave you. But when we’re done, when they’re destroyed, we’ll go home to Tuscany. Lucca if you would prefer, or my own Florence. We’ll start a trading firm, and what we don’t use for capital, we’ll put into the most beautiful library in all of Italy. And we’ll have children together, and we’ll read to them from the greatest literature of the ancients.”

  He was caught up in this vision and encouraged by the wistful smile that came over her face.

  “And that’s not all. I’ll build you a tower over the Arno, where you can look at the Duomo for inspiration. People will remember you in the same way they speak of Porcia Catonis. A true philosopher.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Porcia was forced to swallow coals after her husband killed Caesar.”

  “Hortensia then, a great writer and orator. You can compose your own verse.”

  “My own verse?” There was wonder in her voice.

  “With your mind, your knowledge of the great writers, why not? What would stop you?”

  She squeezed his hands. “Oh, Lorenzo.”

  “Does this mean yes? Will you be my wife?”

  Lucrezia took a deep breath. When she let it out, a deep sadness came into her eyes. Lorenzo’s heart fell. A small, sharp stone of despair settled in his gut.

  “Is it my brother? It is, isn’t it? I know he wants you, and he’s a better match, he—”

  “Lorenzo, no. It’s not Marco. He’s a fine man, but I don’t love him and I don’t want to be his wife.”

  He shouldn’t force an answer, but he needed to know. Like a sharp wound, the sooner the blade came out, the sooner he could struggle past the pain and begin to heal.

  “Is that what you think about me, too?” he asked. “A fine man, but you don’t love me? Is that what it is?”

  “Lorenzo,” she said again, more firmly this time, as if coming to a decision. He’d dropped her hands, but she took his. “Wolves are trying to kill me. My husband might still be alive.”

  “The church would annul your marriage. He gave himself to Satan.”

  “I know. But it’s all hanging over our heads. One of us might die tonight, or both. If not, if we survive . . . ”

  “Yes?”

  “Then I will consider your generous proposal. I promise you that. And it may very well be that my answer will be yes. Indeed, I suspect it will.”

  Lucrezia continued walking, and Lorenzo followed with his heart soaring, happy to be behind so he could smile widely and without embarrassment.

  Now, there was only the small matter of the wolves.

  ✛

  They found Lord Nemours in a fine mood. The provost strode up and down his great hall, his cape flapping and making the torches flicker. Shadows danced along the walls. He roared his approval when a servant ushered Lucrezia and Lorenzo into the room.

  “Behold, the flower of this city,” he cried. “This is what you’re fighting for, men. And welcome to you also, our um, Italian gentleman. Welcome, friend!”

  A score of men-at-arms joined him in strapping on breastplates and cuissarts and jambarts to protect their legs. Pages and envoys came running and left as Nemours shouted instructions and received messages above the din.

  “Where’s Rogerin, that old crow? What? The pox? Damn! Has someone summoned Montmorency? Well then, where the devil is he? How about the Lord Mayor—is he going to send us some men or not? Well of course he needs to man the walls, the fool. But what about the men who aren’t working, get them out of the taverns and whorehouses and put them to work.”

  As he spoke, he worked his way through the men toward the two newcomers. He clapped Lorenzo on the shoulder and kissed Lucrezia’s hand. “My lady.”

  Lorenzo watched the excitement with growing doubt. It looked like Nemours meant to field an army—that would be easy enough for the wolves to avoid.

  “We’re not as strong as we should be,” Nemours said. “Hundreds down with the pox, some even dead. Reminds me of when I fought John Talbot at Harfluer. Four men in five struck down with the bloody flux, but at least those English dogs were suffering the same fate. Don’t suppose we can count on that here, eh?”

  “How many men can you raise?” Lorenzo asked.

  “Five hundred by dusk. If we don’t catch them this evening, I can promise double by nightfall tomorrow. But I think they’ll attack us tonight, the way they set upon us outside the city walls. And it will be dark soon—they won’t expect us to be prepared, not so quickly.”

  “My lord,” Lorenzo said. “May I offer some small counsel?”

  “From you? Of course I’ll listen to your counsel. The Italians are nothing if not cunning, and the Florentines are the most devious of all.”

  “I hope that’s not our reputation,” Lorenzo said.

  “Not your only reputation. There’s money of course, and everything it buys. Oh, and art, and all those Roman ruins you have lying around everywhere you stick a spade. And Italian women are known for their beauty,” he added with a wink in Lucrezia’s direction. “The point is, you know how to slip a knife in when a man isn’t looking. So you think you have a plan that’s better than marching up and down the streets, peering in dark alleys, is that it?”

  “I do. May we speak in private, the three of us?”

  “Of course. And I know just the place—I’ll show you my plans.”

  First, Nemours shouted some instructions to his sergeants. Then he led Lorenzo and Lucrezia out of the great hall and up a winding stone staircase into the tower of his manor. A small watch room sat at the top and he shooed out the two men playing dice in front of a fire pit while they kept a casual watch over the darkening city.

  A chill gust flapped their cloaks as they stepped onto the tower roof, protected behind a crenelated wall that kept them from falling. They drew in their cloaks.

  Paris stretched below them. The spires of churches and abbeys thrust into the gray sky. Houses, chapels, and manors pushed against each other and crowded the lanes and alleys all the way to the ramparts of the city walls, which enveloped the city in a rough circle that enclosed both banks of the river. Every sixty yards or so—the range of an arrow in flight—a tower reinforced the wall like a stone fist. Inside the walls, the Seine was an icy ribbon curling around the Cité. Smoke sputtered from thousands of chimneys, but it was clear up here, the air frigid but sweet smelling. Not so much as a hint of the foul odors and miasmas that drifted from the filthy river, slaughterhouses, and open sewers that polluted rich and poor districts alike.

  “One would think the Lord Mayor could keep them outside the enceinte,” Nemours gru
mbled, “but that’s apparently too much to ask. So we’ll concentrate on the Cité. I sent fifty men to guard each of the bridges. The river is frozen through the length of the city, but I posted archers at the barbicans and at the guard towers all along the banks. When they attack, we’ll be ready. We’ll throw them back and then hunt them back to the gates of the city.”

  “Do you have enough men for that?” Lorenzo asked.

  “My young Italian, a general never goes to battle with enough men. That’s the reality of war. But I have sufficient to win this one. All it takes is one man to sound the alarm, then we’ll give chase on foot. Five patrols of twenty men each on the island, and another ten patrols throughout the rest of Paris. Wherever they attack, we’ll close in and surround them. Swords, spears, crossbows—no mercy until every one of those brutes is dead.”

  He gave a confident nod, and added, “Now, don’t you think that’s a solid plan?”

  Lorenzo chose his words carefully. “Perhaps too solid.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “They’re not animals, or not merely animals, rather. They’ve got human cunning. They’ll see your forces and either hold off on their attack or attack where you’re weakest. This is a plan for repelling an English army, not for defeating these creatures. Some of them might be able to shift to human form and back again. They may even receive aid from other forces. Someone to strengthen them, to whisper orders in their ears.”

  “You mean the devil?” Nemours said, his voice low, as if saying it too loud would draw the very attention of hell.

  “We don’t know,” Lucrezia said. “But they can breach the city walls somehow, even cross the Seine whether or not it’s frozen. Your steward posted sentries, but two wolves gained entrance to your chatelet to attack us.”

  “So my plan is too open?”

  “Perhaps,” Lorenzo said. “What I’m thinking is more subtle.”

  “Ah, there it is. The Italian cunning.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Then what about my men? Without them, how will you repel the wolves from the Cité?”

  “I don’t plan to repel them,” Lorenzo said. “I plan to lure them in and trap them. We’ll turn the Cité into a wolf pit. And that’s when your men will surround them and destroy them.”