The Silver Wolf (17 page)

“I saw eyes,” Drusis insisted stubbornly. “I missed, that’s all.”

“Whatever it was, it’s miles away by now.”

“The eyes were big and high up off the ground. It was a wolf. I’ve hunted wolves.”

“Not on the Campagna, you haven’t,” Basil said. “It was likely an owl.”

Still arguing, they returned to the camp and began to bed down for the night.

The silver wolf waited until the camp quieted. They left only one man on guard to tend the fire. He sat dozing on the temple steps, secure in the knowledge that no large party of men could take them by surprise in the open country.

During the commotion, Antonius had withdrawn into the interior of the temple to sleep.

The wolf whined and snapped at the air as Regeane took control of her. Antonius was in deadly danger and the woman’s sharper human mind comprehended it at once.

She grasped that neither Hadrian nor Antonius would alter state policy under threat of Basil’s blackmail. In fact, he was a suicidal fool to attempt such a ploy. Antonius would die a horrible death.

An enraged Hadrian would, no doubt, avenge him by killing Basil. Everyone would suffer and nothing would be changed.

The wolf didn’t comprehend the convolutions of human cruelty. To her, Antonius was simply a friend. A pack brother, stricken and in need of protection. The woman stepped back and loosed her reins on the wolf. She acted on instinct.

She drifted slowly and silently around to the back of the temple and found what she sought.

Although it had been faced in marble, the fabric of the structure was clay brick. One of the trees of the grove had fallen and taken down part of the wall of the cella with it. A hole gaped wide. The entrance, choked with weeds and brambles, was only a few feet above the ground.

The wolf forced her way through without difficulty and stood looking out at Antonius.

He sat before his small fire, head bowed, his back against the wall near the door.

She walked toward him and stopped on the other side of the fire. Even alone, he kept most of the mantle wound around the lower part of his face, but the wolf could see enough of that face to understand why.

On one side, his lips were gone and she could see the teeth. The lesion extended up into the nose. The area spared by the disease was haunted by the shadow of a great beauty.

The human ruin reminded Regeane of one of those statues of ancient gods, abandoned, broken, part of the face eroded by wind and rain, but still bearing traces of the glory of its prime. As Basil said, Antonius was very young.

His eyes were closed.

The silver wolf stood there, baffled.

When she entered the building she hadn’t had any clear plan in mind, only a hope of somehow helping him to escape Basil. Escape. The idea was ridiculous. She couldn’t even make him understand what she wanted. How could she talk to him? How could she persuade him to talk to her?

The woman would have laughed. The wolf was only frustrated. She whined softly, expressing her aggravation.

He blinked, looking surprised, but not frightened.

At first he must have thought she was a dog because he made
as if to stretch out his hand. Then his eyes took in the long, vulpine muzzle, the erect ears, and the magnificent silver-black ruff that framed the face. He drew the hand back.

“My poor friend,” he said. “Have we usurped your den? Your eyes must have been the ones Basil’s archer shot at.”

Since the wolf simply stood, staring at him, he continued. “What is it? Do you want something from me? Something to eat? I almost wish you had me in mind. Your teeth and jaws would be more merciful than Basil’s cross.”

He turned to one side. A half-loaf of bread, some olives, and goat cheese lay on a wooden trencher near the doorway. He lifted it and set it in front of the silver wolf.

“Here, take this. I have no appetite for Basil’s food. The less I eat, the sooner I’ll be free of Basil and no longer a trouble to my brother.”

The silver wolf dropped her nose to the trencher, then, ignoring it, trotted to the door, skirting the glow cast by Antonius’ small fire.

The man on guard was slumped against the base of one of the ruined columns. He’d piled some fresh fuel on his fire. It burned high, the flames wavering and crackling in the night breeze. The guard snored softly.

The wolf returned and stood by Antonius’ fire, looking over it into his eyes.

“Wolf, you are beginning to puzzle me very much. You don’t behave like any wild beast I’ve ever met.”

Deliberately she reached out, set her teeth in the edge of his mantle, and pulled.

“What?” he asked in surprise. “You want the mantle?”

Desperate to make him understand, she lunged, caught him by the wrist, gently, and pulled. Regeane was a small woman, but she was a big wolf.

Antonius slid a foot or so away from the fire.

She released his arm and stepped back.

He stared at her, then at his wrist in astonishment. “If you wanted to kill me,” Antonius said softly, “you could kill me easily.”

The wolf made a low sound in her throat, an urgent sound. She ran to the hole in the temple cella, then back toward Antonius.

“This is madness,” Antonius said. “What are you? Who are you?”

She caught the corner of his mantle again and tugged.

“Don’t you see? They have horses. I’d be ridden down,” he whispered.

This time she snarled softly, her lips lifting clear of her teeth.

Antonius got up. “I’m standing here now, explaining myself to a wolf.”

She tugged again at the mantle.

“Maybe you’re right. Anything seems better than the fate Basil has planned for me.”

HE HAD TO SADDLE THE HORSE ALONE. SHE FOUND the saddles in the darkness for him, the scent of leather loud as a shout in her nose. She stood in the shadows at the edge of the camp keeping carefully downwind of the horses, waiting impatiently and watching the guard who still snored on the temple steps.

The horses were picketed on one long rope tied between two trees. Her teeth severed the rope with one bite. The nearest horse to her reared, a black shape against the sky. She leaped aside, dodging the slash of a forehoof.

The horses tore free. Still tied together, they didn’t run, but circled and milled.

The silver wolf would have loved to have been able to curse. As it was, she leaped back from the milling animals with a vicious snarl of fury. It was too dangerous. She couldn’t get close enough to cut them free of each other.

Antonius’ horse reared. The wolf saw he’d lost control of it.

He stayed in the saddle by a miracle.

The guard on the temple steps gave a shout.

The wolf was frantic.

Basil and his men awakened, reaching for weapons and torches.

The wolf flattened her ears and lunged, nipping at the hocks of the nearest of the horses. The animal lashed out at her with its heels and bolted at Basil and his men.

They thundered in a tight group across the bedground of Basil’s camp, Antonius’ horse following.

In blind panic, Basil’s men scattered to avoid being trampled. Basil himself ran to the top of the temple porch as the horses flew past, followed by Antonius on the last of them, clinging desperately to the pommel of the saddle. “Stop him!” Basil screamed.

The men around him were too stupefied to react. Basil snatched a crossbow and fired.

The wolf saw Antonius’ horse swerve and stagger as the bolt thudded into its side.

Basil grabbed another bow and the wolf went for him, taking the path cleared by the stampeding horses.

“Deus meus,” someone screamed. “It’s the dog. The dog from the villa.”

“Dog, nothing,” another voice shouted. “It’s Lupa herself, the wolf of Rome.”

Basil spun around, taking aim at the flying silver shape.

The fire blazed ahead of the running wolf, between herself and Basil. She saw the rage in his eyes above the bow and the glitter of a sharp-ridged bolt aimed at her. She cleared the fire on one bound and crouched, gathering herself as the bow thrummed.

The head of the bolt seared her back as it grazed past, plunging into the fire. She leaped upward, fangs gleaming, for Basil’s throat.

Basil aimed a clubbing blow at her with the spent bow. It took the wolf in the ribs, sending her rolling down the temple steps.

“Kill the damned thing. Kill it,” Basil screamed to his men.

The wolf got her legs under her and ran.

She followed the horses. The woman strove to control the wolf. Part of her was terrified, yet, she was exultant and delighted. She’d deprived Basil of his prey and nearly gotten him. She slowed her pace and looked up at the stars, realizing for the first time the horse Antonius was riding was running the wrong way—away from Rome, out across the wilderness of the Campagna toward the coast.

She stopped, sides heaving, and became aware for the first time that she was injured. The scratch seared her back, out of reach of her healing tongue. It itched and burned. She shook
herself. Her fur rose, then fell back into place. Not mortal, she decided. Not even serious.

In the silence far away, Basil’s voice came to her ears. “After them,” he was telling his men. “The horse is wounded. I put a bolt through its ribs. Antonius is crippled and won’t get far on foot.”

The men’s reply was unintelligible, even to the wolf’s preternaturally sharp ears, but it was evidently a demur because she heard Basil shout, “In the name of God, why am I afflicted by such fools? Take the torches. The thing’s just a wild animal. What are you, women, to be afraid of such a thing?”

She had to find Antonius before Basil did. She lowered her muzzle and began circling. In a few moments she picked up the trail of the horses, including the blood scent of the injured one. It had dropped back, trailing the rest. Crossbow bolts were deadly things. Shock and hemorrhage kill quickly.

It was not long before she caught up to Antonius. He was on his feet beside the wounded animal. It stood, legs spread, head lowered, breathing in harsh, roaring gasps.

She knew he’d seen her silver-tinged shadow come up beside him, for he spoke. “What now, my friend?” He stared back the way he had come. The torches of Basil’s men bobbed across the flat countryside toward them.

She edged her body between him and the horse, pushing him away. As the horse scented her, it stamped its feet. The head came up and she saw the pale gleam of one rolling eye.

With a roar, she launched herself at the animal, her teeth meeting with a snap just inches from the equine neck.

With a cry of terror, the horse lurched forward at a staggering run.

The wolf stood quietly, listening as the drumming of hoofbeats faded into silence.

“I see,” Antonius said, looking back at the bright knot of torches behind them. “They’ll follow the horse.”

The wolf whined softly, then made a grunting sound in her throat.

“Mother of God,” Antonius whispered. “You can think.”

The wolf didn’t venture any kind of a reply. She was unhappy about what she’d just done. The animal was dying. She
felt detached from herself. There had been more compassion in the wolf’s heart for the horse than for the human. “To use” was a purely human concept. The wolf didn’t understand it. The wolf’s actions were dictated by need.

She turned her face into the clean wind and led Antonius away from the torches. She had to find a place to put him because, in the morning, the wolf would forsake her. Sunrise signaled the end of the silver one’s power. She must find shelter before she became woman again. The thought hung over her head like a sword.

To the wolf’s ears the night sang with a thousand voices.

Regeane felt as she had when, as a child at her mother’s knee, she’d first been confronted with a book. The tiny letters fascinated her and she was sure there were wonderful secrets contained within them, if only she knew how to interpret them.

So were the voices of the night: a book opened before a caged beast’s eyes. A book she couldn’t read. As wolf or woman she had been confined so long.

She left Antonius behind for a moment and ran in a wide circle, her head up, sniffing the wind. She could smell water far away, and the musky scent of deer.

She had to keep reminding the beast that when dawn came, the joyous creature would fade and she would be abandoned to God knew what fearful fate, naked on the Campagna alone.

Besides, Antonius was in pain. He couldn’t walk very well and the rag bindings on his feet were already tattered. She whined softly.

“Yes, Lupa,” Antonius said, “and I hope you know what to do because I don’t. I don’t have any idea.”

She ran down the slope of a low hill, then up another to the very top. She stopped, a lean dark shape under the stars.

The breeze was cool. Even from far away, she could smell the city. A cleaner smell of wood smoke came to her nostrils. The torches of Basil’s men? No, high above the plain she saw the distant light of Monte Casino. Could she find shelter for Antonius there? Reluctantly she decided against it. Basil would look there first. She didn’t know if the monks could prevent him from taking away someone under their protection.

She realized the scents mapped out the Campagna for her,
the city so far away. Casino on the horizon, and a damp, vertiginous odor. What? It was coming from a heap of ruins nearby.

She returned to Antonius and guided him in that direction.

Hidden in a fold of ground near a clean stream were a few chimneys almost covered by the lush vegetation that flourished near water on the dry plains.

The woman’s mind remembered something like them once near Paris on the Seine. A glassworks.

She dipped her muzzle into a clear pool and lapped. The water was fresh and sweet.

Antonius hunkered down beside her. “Where have you brought me, Lupa?”

The wolf made a low sound in her throat.

Antonius waited. Then she trotted off and began to circle. After a few minutes she found the flue. The glass furnaces had to be vented from below to get the fire hot enough to render the sand molten for the blowers.

There were two furnaces. The first tunnel was choked with dirt and debris, but the second was open. She led Antonius to the tunnel.