The Wolf King (34 page)

Then Dulcinia’s song ended. She left the altar steps and genuflected to the everlasting presence. Gerald blessed her, saying the beauty of her art contributed to the greater glory of God. Lucilla came as close to prayer as she ever did—and just as well, because the next day the pleasant idyll ended and trouble visited the city.

Ansgar rode off at dawn. The brigand Trudo, who had forced Lucilla and Dulcinia to bribe him at the ford, was troubling merchants journeying to the city with imported goods for sale. Ansgar decided reluctantly that he could tolerate Trudo’s depredations no longer. Among the goods the merchants carried to the city was salt, and Trudo was insisting on being paid in this valuable commodity. Ansgar’s landlocked principality had no other source, and if Trudo continued to steal it, the citizens would be reduced to dire straits.

“He has to be cleaned out once and for all,” Ansgar told Lucilla in the early predawn hours as he made ready to leave.

Stella created a scene. Weeping, scratching her face, rending her garments, throwing dust on her head.

Gerald, who’d exchanged his shepherd’s staff for a sword and mail shirt without visible inconvenience, stood looking on indulgently while Stella had hysterics.

“Whatever else I may have thought of her,” Lucilla said darkly, “I always believed Stella a level-headed person, but this—”

Gerald shrugged. “She’s been like this since they met in Ravenna. I think she believes he will not think she loves him if she doesn’t take on when he goes off to fight.”

“I suppose… so,” Dulcinia said, “but still… my heavens—”

Ludolf, roused from his sickbed by the commotion—he’d inherited Stella’s tendency to the spring malaise—came down to help console his mother. Stella fainted into a convenient armchair, well furnished with large cushions. Ludolf held one hand, Dulcinia the other.

Stella cried out, “Thank God my son remains here. So that if you, my darling, the strength of my soul, the light of my eyes, perish, I will at least have him to console me in the brief time I linger like an unquiet spirit in the twilight of my sorrow in this vale of tears. Oh, woe. Woe. Woe.”

Ansgar hurried his good-byes, urged on by Gerald. “Let’s go now and she will quiet down. The longer you delay, the worse she carries one. Come,” Gerald commanded.

Ansgar left with his wife’s wailing ringing in his ears.

When he was past the door, Lucilla snapped, “Oh, shut up. Save your sympathy for that louse Trudo and that pack of cowardly, badly armed scavengers surrounding him. Your husband and his men will probably destroy them the way a blaze does kindling. Your husband is a competent and intelligent soldier, and Trudo is a lazy rapscallion who wants to live off the best efforts of others. He probably will never know what hit him.”

Stella called Lucilla a name peculiar to the Roman argot that Ludolf didn’t recognize, sat up, and demanded nourishment. Ludolf and Dulcinia hurried away to the big kitchens at the back of the house to find something for her.

Stella sat and stared spitefully at Lucilla. They were at the back of the rather imposing palace, in a small room adjoining an herb garden. The very expensive spices that seasoned the few state banquets Ansgar had to give were located here. Other herbs, medicinal and culinary, were prepared and stored. A short flight of steps led down to the wine cellar, a private place where Stella, the lady of the house, kept her accounts and oversaw the manifold and complex task of running the large household.

“What did you tell him about me?” Stella asked Lucilla.

“Nothing.”

Stella sniffed. “I don’t believe it.”

“Stella, I’m not a fool, and don’t take me for one. He is your husband. You are the mother of his son. I can’t think he would be grateful to anyone stupid enough to bring anything discreditable in your past to his attention. I think you underestimate Ansgar. Yes, he’s slow to quarrel, but once he does, I suspect he’s extremely dangerous. I have no desire to earn his enmity. Certainly not by slandering his wife and certainly not while I’m a guest in his home, enjoying both his generosity and hospitality.”

“I was afraid of you when you first came,” Stella said abruptly.

“You have nothing to fear from me.”

Stella frowned. “I wish I’d known that when you first came,” Stella said. She avoided Lucilla’s eyes.

A dreadful suspicion began to creep into Lucilla’s mind. “Stella, what did you do?”

“I’m worried.”

“Stella! You tell me right now—”

“I don’t think he paid any attention—”

“Who?”

“Adalgisus,” Stella said.

Lucilla’s yell of sheer rage brought Dulcinia and Ludolf running. They found Stella vainly trying to keep the chair between herself and an infuriated Lucilla, but when spectators entered the room, both women stopped, straightened their clothing, and smiled.

“We were just having a little chat,” Stella said, batting her eyelashes at Lucilla.

“It’s quite all right,” Lucilla said. “Pay us no mind. Our discussion, while somewhat animated, is basically friendly.”

Both Ludolf and Dulcinia looked as if they didn’t believe this, but left and went back to the kitchen.

“Lucilla, will you please be calm?”

“Yes, yes,” Lucilla whispered. “Be calm. You knew this before you let Ansgar leave?”

Stella nodded. “I did, but I didn’t think after the weeks you’ve been here that Adalgisus would take any notice. He is, after all, hiding out with his mistress in one of those fortified towns in the north.”

“How close is the nearest town?”

“Not far. You can see the walls from the cathedral steps on a clear day.”

“It’s a clear day,” Lucilla said. “Does it belong to the Lombards?”

“Yes, everything around here is part of the Lombard kingdom.”

“Yes,” Lucilla answered gravely.

“I’m tired of this nonsense. Tired and hungry,” Stella snapped.

“Hysterics give you an appetite.”

Stella opened her mouth but nothing came out. She drew in a deep breath. “Be grateful I’m a lady.” she told Lucilla, “and don’t care to call names.”

“Something about a female dog? Was that on the tip of your tongue?” Lucilla asked.

“How very perceptive of you.” Stella then swept out of the room.

They ate in the kitchen. Yes, Ansgar gave banquets and ate with the principal men of the city each night, and for this he used the large state dining room. But meals among the family were taken in the kitchen, a long room with the garden behind it on the east side of the house. The table was a simple plank affair set on trestles, with benches on either side. Because of the hearth fire on one end of the room, it was always warm. A double wall at the back with an inset grate carried away the smoke, and folding doors leading to the kitchen garden all along the back of the house were open in good weather for light and ventilation. A shallow porch with a colonnade protected the room in the summer from the worst of the day’s heat and in the winter from the rains that drenched the countryside.

All in all, Lucilla thought, it was the most beautiful room in the house. She was looking out over the kitchen garden.

Early greens, chicory, turnips, and carrots were waving their feathery foliage over the furrows; the last onions were in bloom and the garlic heading up. Hardy rosemary was covered with blue flowers, and thyme perfumed the walks between the vegetable beds. The flowers on the tiny, creeping plants—which ranged from white, purple, blue, to deep mauve—were drenching the still rather bare garden with early color and fragrance. The sage had not yet come into its own, but a few of the gray stems bore early violet flower spikes. Along the walls espaliered pomegranates were covered with the fiery orange buds that would open to begin the fine, tart, succulent crop of autumn.

Stella sat at one end of the long table in intense consultation with the cook over the night’s menu and the future celebration when Ansgar should return. Dulcinia sat with Lucilla. They ate fresh cheese, bread, onions, and bacon.

“I need to talk to you, Lucilla,” Dulcinia whispered. “Alone.”

“We are about as alone as we will ever be,” Lucilla said snappishly. “Stella’s not paying a bit of attention. What’s wrong?”

“Ludolf,” Dulcinia whispered.

“I did notice he was sticking like a bad burr. Is he making himself obnoxious? ”

“No,” Dulcinia said, still speaking softly but sounding strained. “The reverse. Yes, the reverse is true.”

Lucilla shrugged. “You’re a serious artist. He’s a handsome, young man. Have a fling. Because, make no mistake, that’s what it would be—a fling.”

Dulcinia shook her head. “That’s what I thought at first, but—” She still sounded strained. “But, well, you see, I’m late… and… but—”

“Please, please be clear,” Lucilla said between her teeth. “You know I have lived a harsh life. What? Are you afraid of shocking me? If you’re pregnant, girl, there are medicines. If you care to bear the child, Ansgar will, no doubt, be happy even with a little by-blow. He can afford to support it and, by the by, so can you. Chrispus is very generous, and he won’t give a tinker’s damn who the father is.”

Chrispus was Cardinal Chrispen Mantleck, collector of musical instruments and occasional musicians, Dulcinia being a case in point. “By the way, does he know about Chrispus? I hope you haven’t been keeping a secret, too,” she added under her breath.

“Oh, yes, he knows. He knows about my birth and parentage, or rather lack of known parentage, and even my early upbringing before you rescued me. I didn’t keep any secrets from him. I do believe I’m pregnant, but that’s not the problem.”

“And so—” Lucilla spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Tell me, what’s wrong?”

“He’s talking marriage,” Dulcinia answered softly.

“My God, that is a problem. He can’t—”

Dulcinia nodded. “I know.”

“You won’t—”

“Oh, yes, I would,” Dulcinia said fervently.

“Oh, damn, you’re—”

“In love,” Dulcinia said softly. “Wildly, madly, and ever so hopelessly. Yes, I am in love.”

“God, what a mess.”

Then she became aware that Dulcinia was weeping open-eyed, silently, the tears running down her cheeks. And, as if from nowhere, it came to Lucilla that Dulcinia was as much her child as the two she’d carried in her womb, and she loved the singer perhaps more than those children of her own flesh and blood. And she was prepared to love Ludolf also. She knew little about the boy, except that he did have a fair face, and that when Dulcinia had confessed her pregnancy, he’d had the good taste to talk marriage. He seemed an honest young man.

“Where is he now?” Lucilla asked.

“He really feels bad,” Dulcinia said. “He has the sniffles the way his mother did when we came here. I believe he has a fever. He went to his room but wants me to come up and read to him in a little while.”

Lucilla rose. “Come.”

They returned to the rooms on the upper floor. Now Lucilla was hurrying. She began pulling her divided riding skirt and boots from the cupboard.

“What’s wrong?” Dulcinia asked. “What’s the matter? You’re acting as if something terrible is about to happen. What are you doing?”

“Something terrible is going to happen, but it needn’t be terrible for you.” Lucilla had the skirt on and was pushing her feet into the boots. “Where is Ludolf’s room?”

“In the other wing. Over the garden. It’s quiet there.”

Lucilla grabbed Dulcinia’s arm. “Go to his room.” She had the two small bottles in her hand, one wrapped with gold wire. She pressed them into Dulcinia’s palm. “The one with wire is opium, the other valerian. Go to his room, lock the door, stay there. Keep him occupied for the rest of the day.”

“But what—”

Lucilla’s fingernails dug into Dulcinia’s flesh. “Do you love him?”

“Yes. Yes, but—”

“Then do as I say.”

“Lucilla, you’re frightening me.”

“Be frightened. Sometimes it’s very intelligent to be afraid. This is one of those times. Hear me?”

“Y-y-yes.”

“Even if you have to drug him, keep him quiet for the rest of the day. Now, go.”

Dulcinia fled.

Lucilla was dressed. She threw a leather bag over her shoulder then hurried to the stair. She saw Stella looking up at her from the foot of the steps. She heard the commotion in the street.

Rain. The rain was still blinding when the two wolves together swam the river beyond Pavia. It was swollen with snowmelt.

The spot where Mona and her family were murdered must be underwater now,
Regeane thought. She hoped the horror would be cleansed from the earth there, and the spirits of the dead would find peace. All the dead, not simply the victims.

Above, the sky was brightening as the worst of the storm passed over. Long shafts of sunlight were striking down through the meshwork of storm clouds, driving the shimmering wetlands they swam through into brilliance. They were gone, free. The town, its claustrophobic terror, behind them; imprisonment, death only a memory; and the fresh, clear water cleansing away sorrow, fear, the marks, the stink, and even dimming the memories of the pain.

He led. She followed, the old pattern reasserting itself, oddly comforting for both of them.

It seemed he hurried away. He hated the confinement of cities. She had been a little frightened by him after they had left Rome. Each night, even when she felt abominably weary, he had become the wolf and left, ranging out into the darkened and sometimes dangerous countryside. At first she’d accompanied him on these runs, but then the strain of days spent on horseback or riding in carts along roads that hadn’t seen maintenance in several hundred years took its toll on her. That and the long terrors of her struggles with both the Lombards and her rapacious kin. Exhaustion began to set in and his rush to return to his stronghold seemed more and more senseless.

Matters had reached a crisis when, one evening, she’d climbed in beside him after a long blustery, rainy ride. She was chilled and so tired, she was almost without appetite for supper. She’d bitten her tongue all day to keep back complaints. She was almost desperately looking forward to the warmth of his arms and the muscular body that embraced her, made her feel safe, secure, and above all loved. A security that allowed her to spend the night in a profound restful sleep without dreams.