Night of the Wolf (25 page)

In the night, ice had formed on their edges and burned Dryas’ feet as she strode toward the stone footholds that led out over the valley and up to . . .

Odd,
Dryas thought.
It has no name, but everyone knows what you are speaking of when you talk of one.

He caught her halfway across the meadow. He embraced and tried to kiss her. “Come back. You must be cold. Come back and I will warm you.”

His voice was like velvet; his lips silk.

Dryas thought of all the tales she’d heard of women who betrayed men. In the end, they were easy to fool, but to take advantage of such splendid innocence was as cruel an action as Dryas had ever contemplated. Her teachers had demanded the highest standards from her. Absolute truthfulness; the courage to lay down her life, if necessary, not only without complaint, but without a second thought.

What would they think of her deeds this night? But she knew they, like she, would weigh them against the safety of Mir’s people and, however reluctantly, accept her choice.

But they would also believe he, too, should be given the right to choose.

“I have drink above,” she said. “It will warm us.”

The black wind died down and it seemed the whole earth was still.

“It’s near dawn,” he said. “Tell me where it is. I watched you climb up there before. I’ll go up and get it. I don’t like that place. It smells and looks wrong to me. If you fall, you’ll be dashed to death against the rocks.”

“So will you,” Dryas forced herself to say.

“No, I can bring myself back from the edge of death. I have that power. Anything that doesn’t kill me instantly doesn’t hurt me at all. I am not a wolf.”

“And you are not a man.” She kissed him again, molding her body against his, spreading her legs at his hips as if asking for his heat.

“No, and I don’t want to be one. You of all beasts under heaven are the cruelest, the most malicious and merciless. You spare nothing in your wrath. A wolf understands anger. But you don’t kill to live, but for convenience only.”

She kissed him again, running her hands over his body. “If you despise us so, then why take our shape?”

“Because I’m tempted by . . . women. Women and power.”

“Then come with me. Come drink the honey mead. I put some up there near the stone circle.”

“I have had wine. I don’t know as much about mead.”

“Then come,” and her voice was subtle as the serpent’s when it spoke to Eve. “Don’t you want me again?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Yes and yes and more yesses. One for each night and then however often I can persuade you to yield to me on each and every night.”

“Come, and I will show you magic, enchantment. Come taste of love perfect and everlasting.”

“No,” he said. “Perfect and everlasting is too much to ask of . . . anything.”

He drew back. In the distance far away, a wolf howled. He turned away, listening.

“Are they calling you?”

“No.” He shook his head. “That’s . . . They don’t have names . . . I’m trying to think of a way to tell you. He has white on his muzzle, four claws on his left forefoot and very worn teeth. He is telling me where they will den today after the sun rises. Why do you ask me these things? Imona never questioned me this way.”

“I think she didn’t want to know too much about her lover.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t think she did either.”

Another chorus of howls ran out. To her shock, he answered. She hadn’t known such a sound could come from a human throat.

She looked at him questioningly.

“Imona would have been frightened out of her wits.”

“I’m not Imona,” Dryas said. “What did they tell you?”

“Nothing. These were only polite greetings. Now, be sensible. Come with me.”

“No,” Dryas said, turning toward the edge of the meadow. “I want to greet the sun and I’m cold. The mead will warm me.”

He watched her draw away from him for a moment, then shrugged and followed her through the grass.

For a moment Dryas thought she’d lost, but her ears were sharp enough to detect the whisper of his tread on the ice crusted grass blades. A few steps brought her to the edge of the meadow. She was feeling for the first handhold when he came up behind her, took her hand in his, and placed it in the first niche in the rock.

“You see well in the dark,” she commented.

“I am a wolf. I do a lot of things better than a man. You are a clumsy kind. Your talents lie in other directions.”

She felt no sense of insult. His tone was matter-of-fact, neutral. She understood he was simply stating the truth as he saw it.

They climbed together.

Below, the meadow was somewhat sheltered, but here it was as it had been the first time she came. The wind seemed to blow almost constantly.

But she’d hidden another blanket and it was wrapped around a clay flask. It was surprisingly heavy, glazed on both the inside and outside. The stopper doubled as a cup.

She knelt, poured some mead into the cup, and tasted it. Her stomach was empty and the drink rocked her to her heels.

In the spring, the mountain flower crops succeed one another. First, the lowland orchards bloom with wild cherry and crab apple, then the tame fruits—peach, plum, almond, quince, and clover—begin to spread white, yellow, and scarlet.

But there are other more sinister growths: orange henbane; the ghostly white poppy; and, in the shadows on streambanks, nightshade, blue and gold, which scatters its first blossoms among the yet-green lavender hidden by the grass.

Then the oak, ash, and beech drip with male flowers, scattering pollen into the spring winds and, mixed with tree pollen, drifts that of mistletoe, carrying the key to otherworldly paths.

The bees don’t discriminate. Some things are lost. Some things will be lost,
Dryas thought. For only those of Mir and Blaze’s order knew when to collect the honey and how to brew the mead, and neither would have any real successor. They would take this secret to their graves with them.

She drank, seeing that mysterious, gentle innocence in his face. He sipped.

“It has a good taste,” he said, and drank some more. And, without quite realizing it, he’d finished the jug.

Gently, she kissed the last few droplets from his mouth.

He reached out and touched her breast and a savage hunger awoke in her. She wanted him. She wanted him to wipe out her consciousness, her will, as he had the first time. But she knew with a deep sadness that he couldn’t. She was cursed by what she’d done and would now do.

He was more demanding and impatient now and she sensed the mead had done its work. It was all she could do to keep him from forcing her to the ground then and there. But she was able to lead him to the flat stone in the center of the circle.

Once there, lying on the bier, the place of the dead, she found herself afraid and her desire began to ebb. All around, in each opening in the circle, she saw them standing. She could see each clearly for only a second, then they shimmered as does a reflection in a still pond when an insect or a fish breaks the surface and the picture of trees and sky flies into a thousand scattered shards.

A skull-eyed woman in coarse, brown homespun held a child by the hand. Both woman and child had their eyes burned out. A young warrior, too young, his beard only fuzz on his sallow skin, eyes closed, tears on his cheeks, one leg a mass of blood, a scarlet stripe across his throat: he’d been wounded, his throat cut while he lay helpless. Another woman, faceless, a winding sheet wrapped tightly around her, trying to hide the fact that her skull was crushed and she’d been gutted like a deer.

They are shadows,
Dryas thought.

She looked up and concentrated on his face. The wind was rising, blowing low clouds across the edges of the clearing. She could see the vapors glow whitely because the light was growing, the dead were being drawn into the boiling clouds, rising from the valley, and vanishing.

He forced her legs apart with his knee and, a second later, she felt a stab of pain and knew she hadn’t been quite ready when entered. Then she wondered if she’d been right because the slight pain was tonic and cleared her shadowed mind. She was drawn into the exquisite contemplation of the excitation of quivering flesh on flesh.
Rather like being in a swing, being pushed high,
she thought.

Oh, how does one describe this feeling, even to one’s self or even remember it? Higher. Don’t let this ever stop. Then highest.

Just then, the sun’s rays poured golden light into the mist. She studied his face, intent and beautiful above her, and her body was drawn into worship, submission, and an ultimate realization of absolute peace by his.

Philo and Lucius stood quietly alone in Antony’s bath.

“I’d like to . . .” Lucius raised a clenched fist.

Philo rested a hand on his arm. “Don’t.” The word was the closest to a command Lucius had ever heard Philo utter. “Don’t!” he repeated, this time more as an entreaty. “Don’t! Not even in front of me. Antony meant everything he said about treason. And sit down. The cut on your forehead is bleeding again.”

Lucius allowed himself to be pushed into a sitting position on one of the stools near the tub.

“Let me get a clean bandage on it.” Philo picked up the heavy bowl that held the nuts. Water was still pouring from the statue’s pitcher. He rinsed the bowl and filled it with warm water. One corner of the room held a stack of clean towels. He fetched two, washed Lucius’ face with one, and tore the other into strips to use as a dressing. “Before we talk, let me look around,” Philo said.

He left and returned with another glass of something. He handed it to Lucius. “Drink!”

“You mixed it yourself?”

“Yes! It goes without saying.”

Lucius drank.

“Now,” Philo said. “I believe we’re really alone.”

“How do I get out of this?”

“You don’t. I meant what I said. There’s no appeal, but you can develop a lingering illness, an ague, tertian or quartan fever. Go one day, then the next, wrap a cloth around your neck and tell everyone—including your sister—that you have taken a chill. I’ll support you, saying I believe you have a fever. Then you can spend several weeks lounging around on a velvet couch in the library, reading . . . whatever takes your fancy.”

“And when the several weeks are up?”

“I’ll think of something. I was coming to see you this morning to talk to you about a very important matter. The girl, Vella . . . her lover . . .”

“She had a lover?”

“Yes. Not a man, a woman: the kitchen maid you sent out to get a salad.” Philo reached up and ran his fingers through his hair. “This girl is very distraught. She . . . she . . . made some threats.”

“Oh, no, you didn’t leave her alone? Where’s Fulvia?”

“Easy, the girl is sleeping and the other slaves are watching her. They are afraid of the punishment if one of the household slaves kills their owner. Every man, woman, and child belonging to the family will be executed. They are in terror of such a massacre. They might kill her if she gets too violent. But your sister’s safe enough. She’s off visiting the Egyptian queen.”

“And blissfully unaware someone wants to cut her heart out, if she has one.”

“Just so. I was coming to intercede with you for the kitchen girl. Or at least to try . . .”

Lucius shook his head, then winced. His forehead was sore. “Is everyone, no matter who, indispensable to someone else?”

“Almost always,” Philo answered sadly.

“Get the praetor. Do you know someone who will take her in?”

“You’re sure you want the praetor and not the carnifice?”

“I can remember when a noble house could command the loyalty of its servants without calling in a torturer, an executioner. No! I will not have my home dishonored by such an individual or his actions. No! That was horrible enough last night. I don’t want any more blood on my family’s hands. Get her out of my house. No! I don’t want her executed. No! Give her her freedom; tell her to get out and never come near the Basilian villa again. You know someone who will take the girl in?”

“There’s a woman who—”

“No! No! No! Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Just get rid of her—and make sure Fulvia never gets wind of the whole affair. Did you get any sleep last night?”

Philo shook his head. “No.”

“Well, let’s go home and get some.”

“I can’t,” Philo said. “I have to call on Gordus and make sure his son—”

“The other swordsman was his son!”

“Yes. Martinus by name.”

“Why, for heaven’s sake?”

“The boy hero-worships him and wants to follow in his father’s footsteps,” Philo said.

“Oh, he wanted to discourage him.”

“Just so. He’ll cripple the boy if he has to, to keep him out of the arena. And I can’t say I blame him. I think were he my son—”

“If he were your son, you’d probably bring him up to have better sense. What’s Fulvia up to with that Egyptian . . . trull?”

“I don’t know and I wish I did. Firminius is with her. She’s up to some mischief, all right.”

“Well, let’s go and free that girl before my darling sister gets back. Tertian or quartan fever?”

“What?”

“Your memory is worse than mine. What kind of disease do you want me to get?”

“Tertian. It’s less serious. We wouldn’t want to get your sister’s hopes up now, would we? And, by the way, what did that Alexandrian dancing girl suggest you do?”

“Never mind. You don’t want to know.”

“I don’t?”

“No.”

When Maeniel woke, Dryas was sitting on the edge of the stone, plaiting her hair.

The valley was filled with mist. So thick were the vapor clouds that they concealed even the mountain meadow.

He sat up, knowing he hadn’t slept long, and shaded his eyes with his hand against the light. His head hurt. He was unfamiliar with the classic hangover. He tried to call the wolf and panicked when he found he couldn’t.

Dryas stood there, wearing only the necklace, her hair braided to a coil at the back of her head.

Her eyes met his and he knew his wolf senses remained. They told him men were in the high meadow. He heard the clink of fetters. He wondered why they hadn’t killed him. The mountain’s bones weren’t far below his feet and he clawed up a rock, but then he met her eyes again.