Night of the Wolf (27 page)

But whatever they might be, Lucius found himself mightily entertained as he tried to find his own level. The haughty patricians snubbed even most of the plebeian old families, who were almost equally socially prominent. They, in turn, looked down on those they considered foreigners—newly created senators from Gaul, Greece, Africa, and some of the Latin states—trying to pretend these gentlemen didn’t exist.

Mill around and talk. That’s how Antony described it and it was an apt description of what went on. They gathered at about the third hour, milled around and talked until Caesar or his acting representative arrived. He was, by then, dictator for life and that’s what the Senate did—took dictation. It was their function to give immediate, enthusiastic approval to every law or decree Caesar proposed. And, in their few idle hours, to vote him new and unprecedented honors.

It didn’t take Lucius long to discover the old ruling class loathed Caesar, but were now powerless to halt his complete administrative overhaul of the Roman state.

“If Antony thinks I’m going to find out anything he can use from the Gracchi, the Schipoes, the Metelli, or any of the rest of our exalted first families, he’s got softening of the brain,” Lucius told Philo. “None of them speak to us new men, and we’re lucky if they acknowledge our existence at all. The other day Tillius Cimber shoved me out of the way as he was pushing through the door to the gardens in front of the Curia. I think if I’d fallen, he’d have stepped on me as if I were a lumpy paving stone.”

“Did you just take that?” Philo asked.

“No, I got him in the instep and shin with one of my old military boots. I think he knew who kicked him and why. One of those small victories we were talking about. And the new senators are an interesting lot. I do have about seven dinner invitations so far. Tonight, it’s two Greeks, Manilius and Felex. We met yesterday. They saw what I did to Cimber and enjoyed it to no end.”

Lucius had been standing there and nursing his sore ribs from Cimber’s elbow when they walked up beside him. It was misting rain and the gardens looked sadly denuded by the early winter chill. All but the stone pines were leafless, and none of the public slaves had been out to sweep the walks between the flowerbeds. They were coated with wet, brown, soppy-looking fallen leaves.

“Nicely done,” one of them said, and they introduced themselves.

“Where are you from?” Lucius asked.

“Greece,” Manilius said.

“Africa,” Felex told him. “Actually, Alexandria but . . . Caesar, or someone in his huge entourage, appointed us to represent Greece.”

Manilius was a conventional-looking Greek with brown, curly hair and a delicate, pale complexion, lightly built and strong looking. Felex was black: ebony skin, dark eyes, short, tightly curled hair, muscular, with a cheerful face and a magnificent ivory smile that set off the darkness of his skin.

“Greek,” Lucius repeated. “If you’ll excuse my saying so, Felex, you don’t look . . .”

Both young men laughed. Felex said, “I’m African. My father speculates, sending wild animals to the games in Rome. He made a lot of money and sent me to Alexandria to get a liberal education.”

“His father,” Manilius contributed, “began to feel, after a time, that his education was turning out to be entirely too liberal and wanted to call him home.”

“Yes,” Felex said. “In fact, I picked up a few habits in Alexandria that Father didn’t approve of at all. In truth, his disapproval was so great that I had to flee in my nightgown to escape being turned into lion food.”

“Luckily, his mother wasn’t as tediously narrow-minded as his father, and she managed to warn him in time,” Manilius commented, “and as long as he stays away, his father won’t become difficult, and he is even able to act as his family’s agent here in Rome.”

“Yes,” Felex said. “I receive nice quarterly payments. A commission for placing my father’s shipments with Caesar’s purveyors when the games are celebrated.”

“So he put you in the Senate,” Lucius said.

They both giggled girlishly and Manilius lifted his friend’s hand and kissed it gently. Felex patted him on the cheek. “So sweet, my adored one.”

“And Manilius, what do you do for Caesar?” Lucius asked.

“Oh, spices. I’m a broker, don’t you know? My family has been in the business since before the Peloponnesian War.”

“Oh, for longer than that,” Felex said. “Far longer than that. Since the Trojan War, at least.” Then they both laughed.

“Come have dinner with us tonight,” Manilius said to Lucius, then turned to Felex. “Imagine, my dear, a Roman who will actually speak to us publicly. We have the most charming Attic poet. He will give us a reading tonight, his newest eglactic ode. We have a truly excellent cook and you may have your choice of a girl or boy for dessert.”

“I’m afraid I’ll be a disappointment to you,” Lucius said. “I’m not a patrician, though my mother was. She married beneath her. The Basilians are only knights.”

“So charmed to make your acquaintance,” Manilius said. “What in the world is a knight?”

“We are allowed to stoop to make money from commerce. We’re the Roman business class.”

“I’m still happy to know you,” Manilius said. “And do come visit us.”

“Perhaps we can compare notes on our experiences in trade,” Felex said.

“Or perhaps you’re in the market for some spices?”

“In any case,” Lucius now told Philo, “I believe I’ll accept their invitation tonight.”

“They’re probably a good pair to cultivate,” Philo said.

“Do you know everybody?”

“Felex has hemorrhoids.”

“Felex? I would have thought Manilius would be the one, or maybe the soldiers who handled my education were wrong. I was always told the woman in the pair got the sore ass.”

“The soldiers have no room to talk,” Philo said. “I see at least three a week from Cleopatra’s personal guard, same problem.”

“I’m not surprised. They can’t marry. Not that regulations would stop any of them if they could afford to keep a wife. But, as a rule, below the rank of centurion they don’t have enough money, and they’re moved around too often to maintain a family. That leaves the local whores and they’re most likely to be dirty, drunken, and ugly, if not downright diseased or dangerous. Sure as you run into some sweet-faced, innocent young thing, five will get you twenty-five, she’ll have a pimp hiding somewhere ready to cut your throat for a copper coin or your military issue sword and boots. So they more often than not make do with each other, and I can’t say I blame them. I can’t say I’m enthusiastic about joining the army again, either. Why should I cultivate those two? I can’t think we have much in common.”

Philo smiled mirthlessly. “First, they’re as harmless as pet rabbits. Second, no, a number of the aristocracy won’t speak to them in the Curia, but they damn well will at those banquets they give. Just about all the spices that get to Rome pass through Manilius’ warehouse, and Caesar has made something of a pet out of Felex.

“Three, they’re both inveterate gossips. I wouldn’t doubt that either one of them would climb down from his funeral pyre to hear or tell the latest, really salacious tidbit stemming from the activities of the magnates of our fair city.”

“Umm, Philo, is Caesar . . . ?”

“No, and don’t repeat that old lie about King Nicodemous to his face. Not a few people who twitted him about it in his younger years wound up with a very final invitation to visit the Elysian Fields courtesy of Rome’s most distinguished general.”

“Philo, are . . .”

“No. I could possibly have bribed my father out of trouble, if I hadn’t been besotted with a charming little article named Roxanne.”

“Dropped a bundle on her, did you?”

“Yes,” Philo answered morosely.

Dryas returned to the hut at dawn. She found him sleeping. Mir was right about one thing: he did still show unnatural strength and a strange kind of power. The cut her sword inflicted on his chest was only a healed red line and she knew in a few hours that would fade, also.

As she watched, he awoke. “Have you anything else hidden?” she asked harshly.

“No,” he said. “I only wish I did. I should have aimed for your head, but I was afraid I might miss.”

Dryas, her ribs hurting, limped toward the oak stump and sat down.

He noticed she had difficulty breathing and that she was in obvious pain. “At least I hurt you and you will remember me and my pain for a long time.”

“Yes,” she answered. “I will.” She sat upright for a moment. It was painful to do so. Then she tried to get him to look into her eyes, but he avoided her gaze and, instead, sat back and stared through the open door at the growing light outside.

“You have taken away my life. It would have been kinder to kill me.”

“No!” she answered. “And I didn’t take away your life, only half of it. I was charged by my duty to do so. I couldn’t let you run the woods as a wolf and kill Mir’s people. Now you cannot take your wolf form and you must live your life as one of us.”

“I told you I don’t want to be a man!” he shouted.

“Well, now you have no choice!” she shouted back. Then she was knifed by a spasm of pain in her chest. Her body and face twisted, until she managed to get pressure with her hand on the place where the broken bones’ ends grated on one another. The pain eased to a tolerable level.

“You can be proud of yourself, and you’re right. I’ll think about you a lot for the next few weeks,” she said. “Perhaps even for the rest of my life because I don’t like the thing I did to you. I didn’t want to destroy the wolf, but it was the lesser of two evils. My order is charged with the care and protection of our people. That was why Mir sent for Blaze and why Blaze asked that I come here.”

She looked up at him. This time he met her eyes and again she saw the beautiful, primal innocence of the beast in them. Then she bowed her head, feeling defeated by his absolute assurance—so much freedom from doubt and complexity.

“I suffer and will for a month or more, and your injuries heal in a few hours. I grieve for years, but you ease your sorrow with murder, and then you reproach me with restraining you.”

“Yes, and what of Imona? How much care and protection did you offer her?”

“Imona had a duty. She was born to it. She was a noble woman, daughter of kings uncounted. In happier times, she wouldn’t have been asked for her life. But a catastrophe has befallen our people: she was called upon to sacrifice herself that the Romans and their Caesar might never cross the Rhine. And they never will.

“Even so, I was offered. I bore a child. He should have been a king, but the Romans killed him. He was my son.”

The wolf spoke contemptuously. “Your people make up tales about gods. The stories you tell are about
yourselves
and
your
fears. I know what walks near the wooden image rotting in the sacred grove in the valley. I have seen her or what she allows us to see. Because we are her children and paid homage to her long ago. Sometimes she travels with us and sometimes sends us to guard her minions. Why would she demand Imona’s life? One human life is nothing to . . . them.

“Have they intentions? Do they will actions or care about wolves or men? I cannot say. I was the wolf then; I came to the grove where blood sacrifice was being offered. Blood, but not death.

“The mead was in wooden bowls resting in the grass. Bolder than the rest, I drank, and then felt the touch of she who intoxicates. She in whose dreams we see all our desires. So she made me a man and called me Maeniel. And I took a woman in the grove, one of the chosen ones, they who yield their blood in the spring that the water—blood of the earth—is to be set free. Not locked in ice, caught in cold stone forever.” He stopped speaking and sat down in the straw and rags of his bedding.

Dryas glared at him with a murderous accusation. “You chose to be a man and now you refuse the responsibilities of your state.”

“I desired the girl—woman—whatever she was,” he said.

“Girl when you went into the grove, woman when you left, I’ll wager,” Dryas answered with fury. She stormed out of the shed.

Maeniel found himself shaking with fear. He had given the one he thought of as a sorceress his name. And a name was a word of power. How might she use it to further bind him? But nothing of his fears materialized. Dryas did not return.

Instead, the mad girl brought him his food at the usual time in the late afternoon. She brought hers with it, more than enough for both of them. A pannikin of soft freshly baked breads, venison—a big chunk—and a cobbler made with dried apples and honey. They both ate well. He was enjoying his food more and more. Wolves had nothing like this in their lives.

He watched the girl eat. She was dainty. Her hands were still beautiful, graceful and long-fingered, though the nails were dirty and bitten to the quick.

She had table manners, always chewing with her mouth closed. The morsels of meat and vegetables were wrapped in flat bread and she conveyed them to her lips without dripping gravy on her clothing. She always left the hut or house to wash her hands and face before and after meals.

Today Dryas had been convincing about his need to accept his humanity. But a look at the maimed and crippled child convinced him again that he wanted no part of the human journey. Then he thought, if he wanted to live, he might not have a choice.

Lucius found Manilius and Felex’s house resolutely Greek. There were no frescoes. The walls were plain stucco decorated with a white baseboard and a red stripe, broad, shoulder high. Above it, the wall was white until it reached the ceiling, beamed with cedar.

Everything in the house showed the same sparse elegance. From the exquisitely carved chairs, stools, and banquet couches to the statues in what Lucius recognized as a very Roman style peristyle. Only a wealthy Greek could afford a Roman house. There were expensive copies of priceless Greek originals.

The Attic poet lived up to his reputation, looking very like a bust of Pericles. Lucius was unable to develop an opinion as to whether the poet had any talent or not because he declaimed the verses—suitably accompanied on a kithara, of course, played by a tall, horse-faced young man—in a somewhat more archaic Greek than was spoken by the Hellenes at present.