Night of the Wolf (30 page)

He didn’t think what she’d done was out of madness or fear. She’d given her life for him, to save him. She was confused in his mind with so many cubs he’d nurtured and protected.
Yes,
he thought,
for you, not the other one, for you I will sit by their fires.

He didn’t fear death; no wolf does. Even dogs are free of it, so that escape hatch was always open to him. But for him, like all other creatures, including the human ones, the ever-changing nature of experience is what keeps him alive. He was not afraid to die, but he would hate to stop living. And in order to keep on living, he would have to join with creatures who were alien to him, to learn their ways and their rules. But she had wanted him to have this gift so dearly bought.

He glanced again at her face, silent, beautiful, and at peace. So he would accept it and try to become one of them. But it was hard and left an abiding sorrow in his heart. He remembered pitying Imona, trapped in the smoky hut by night when he and his kind, pulsing with an appetite for food, friendship, and even love, ran in an unappreciated freedom by moon and starlight. Secure in the knowledge that, at birth, they had been endowed with all they ever had or would need to survive, or they would not have been allowed by the great arbiter of all life, necessity, to take their first breath and live at all.

But these incomplete creatures, so dependent on each other for the satisfaction of each and every need, were born to a thousand torments: fear of disease, hunger, a harrowing loss of the approval of their fellows, needing clothing against the cold and protection against the predatory instincts of their own kind. Each day was a struggle and, by night, they entered a cavern of fear and always, every day and hour, they looked on death, knowing that it would one day inevitably come to them or from them.

Maeniel picked up the ax and began to split the logs stored in the space between the roof and the wall. The sky, which had been clear at sunrise, was now clouding over and small flakes were beginning to fall.

A few minutes later, Mir entered the shed. He brought a pan of cooked cereal, some fresh-baked bread, and strips of cooked meat from the night before and gave it to Maeniel. Then he went to where the girl lay and stood over her. For the first time, he saw the mercenary Maeniel had killed. The man lay in a heap on the floor against the wall. Most of his skull and brain was distributed along the planking. Mir, who had been a warrior in his youth, sucked in his breath.

Maeniel ate the bread and eyed the cereal he held in the other hand.

“Use the spoon,” Mir said.

Maeniel finished the bread, but still looked puzzled by the cereal. Mir reached over, picked up the spoon, and showed him how to scoop up the cereal. Maeniel tried some and made a face. “Hardly worth the trouble,” he said.

“Eat it,” Mir told him. “It will warm you.” Then he returned to the back of the shed and stood gazing out the door. The snow was increasing, the flakes growing larger and larger. Mir heard the spoon scrape the bottom of the pan. “I wonder who they were,” he said, glancing again at the warrior lying against the wall.

Maeniel resumed splitting the logs. “Romans,” he hazarded. He was soon working up a sweat, and the droplets were freezing on his face. This was a new experience for him: no canid perspires.

“No,” Mir said. “Armor and weapons are all wrong. These men didn’t come from that camp in the valley. No, I believe they were after Dryas. Their leader said, just before she killed him, that he wanted to bring her to Rome unharmed.”

Maeniel stopped chopping. “What is Rome and why would he want to bring her there?”

“Because she is unusual. She is what they call an Amazon, a woman who fights.”

“She does that well.” Maeniel stacked the wood. “And other things, too,” he added darkly.

“Women like her are uncommon, even among us. In a way, it may be a pity we dispensed with them some centuries ago. They had a good grip on issues larger than winning and losing a few battles. A woman like her dealt with Marius, and another might have dealt with Caesar. She was right about you. I wanted to kill you and she refused. She and my wife believed you could be taught to be . . .”

“Human.” Maeniel supplied the word. “Well, your admirable Dryas has somehow . . . I don’t know what she did, but I can no longer summon the wolf. She has given me no choice in the matter. I hope you’re a good teacher, old man, because I have a lot to learn.”

Mir looked at the corpse resting against the wall. “Not the least of which is how to control that great strength of yours.”

“What I did to him is what I intended to do. He killed her and cannot be excused for it. All he need have done was brush her aside, but she tried to give me a weapon, so he killed her.”

“Not surprising,” Mir said. “Most soldiers are so made, or perhaps being soldiers makes them so. They resort to force when other methods might accomplish their purposes more easily. Whatever evils he committed, he paid for them.”

“Not enough!” Maeniel was splitting logs again with grim energy. “How much of this do you need?”

“What you have done now, is probably more than enough. Come in. We will have to devise some foot coverings for you. The temperature is dropping and your feet will freeze. We must prepare to flee when the weather breaks. While I don’t think those men were Romans, they couldn’t operate here without the permission of that garrison in the valley. And when they are again able to travel, they will no doubt be here to try their hand at capturing Dryas. We must go. All of us.”

“To the town across the Rhine?” Maeniel asked.

“What do you know of Cynewolf and his stronghold?”

“Enough!” Maeniel answered, then buried the ax six inches deep in the oak butt where Dryas usually sat.

Mir considered that he’d probably asked his new protégé all the questions he should. Or, for that matter, certainly all the questions he wanted answers to. Bringing up the matter of Imona’s fate could be both unfortunate and unwise, and Mir was neither. So he picked up the discarded eating utensils and led Maeniel to the house.

Lucius let Cut Ear into the stable. Together, they saddled two horses.

“We go now?” Cut Ear asked.

“No,” Lucius said. “First, we ask questions and I will pay you. Come!” Cut Ear followed.

The money was in a chest chained to an iron bar set in the wall near the atrium. The lock opened when Lucius turned his key in it He wondered if his sister knew he had a key. He’d never used it. His father had given it to him on his eighteenth birthday when he rode off to begin his military service, but he’d never ventured to raid the family strongbox.

He’d been given what, to him, was plenty of money. His horse, armor, and clothing were paid for out of family funds, and two old family retainers accompanied him. The female servant, Alia, had been recruited by the two servants, both freedmen of his father’s, because they were basically lazy and somewhat status conscious. Washing clothes, emptying chamber pots, and sweeping floors were beneath them. As for cooking, after a week of eating their culinary disasters, Lucius gave up and took the line of least resistance—a popular direction with him—and paid Alia extra to cook.

This left the two old fussbudgets free to worry about his health, his morals, his spending habits, drinking habits, his eating habits, etc., etc., and so forth. After enduring two months of this, he found reason to send them back to Rome with orders to his father’s accountant to pension them both off.

Thereafter, he made do with Alia. A lifetime of following the legions left her compulsively neat and constitutionally parsimonious. Since there was nothing to spend money on except women—he was too fastidious; drink—he was not addicted; or gambling—he was indifferent to it—his quarterly allowance was more than enough for him.

In short, he had never worried about money before, but he had seen his father putting it away in the form of various coin denominations.

He felt around in the open box. “Yes.” A leather strap. His father had been an orderly individual. He had leather pouches made, ten spaces sewn up and down, a pocket for each coin. Ten up, ten across: a hundred golden aurei. He unfolded the leather. The glimmer of gold was apparent even in the dim light.

“Gold,” Cut Ear said.

Lucius handed it to him.

It disappeared somewhere into Cut Ear’s clothing. “Do murder?”

“Only if I tell you to.”

“Ya!”

Lucius felt Cut Ear sounded enthusiastic.

There was a clank of chains and the old porter emerged from his sleeping space near the door. He looked up and saw two men looming over the strongbox. He crouched, frozen by fear. Then Cut Ear struck a light and an oil lamp flared, showing Lucius’ face.

“Master Lucius!”

“Yes. Where does Firminius sleep?”

The old slave pointed one trembling hand to a corridor to the right of Fulvia’s rooms.

Lucius nodded. “Go back to sleep.”

Together, he and Cut Ear walked down the hall until they reached a door. To Lucius’ surprise, light streamed out under it and there were voices in the room.

“Well, who was she?” The voice was Firminius’ and he sounded exasperated. The answer was muffled, but the tone was exculpatory.

“Castor and Pollux making their report, no doubt,” Lucius said in a low voice.

“That what you call them, eh?” Cut Ear replied. “I tell you, they sell you cheap. Want knock or kick the door open?”

“Kick it open.”

Cut Ear kicked. The door flew open.

The room was relatively bright and more feminine than any woman’s room Lucius had ever been in. There was a domed skylight in the ceiling set with glass panels. At present, all it showed were stars.

The bed occupying the middle of the chamber was the centerpiece. Lemon wood, curved at both ends, polished to a high gloss, plumped with a triple feather mattress and many cushions. Long swags of gauze draped from the ceiling, tented the raised dais on which it rested.

Two giant golden roses served as candelabra, one mounted on each side of the bed. The oil was in the base; the wicks poked up between the petals that served as reflectors for the flames. They were dazzling. The whole room was dazzling. The walls were painted to simulate pale white, yellow, and plum velvet draperies held up by cupids and swans.

Firminius gave a little shriek when the door flew open. “Oh, my.” His hands fluttered like doves and he batted his eyelashes at Lucius.

Lucius stepped inside, followed by Cut Ear. He pointed to the door. “Go,” he ordered Castor and Pollux. “I want to speak privately with my sister’s secretary.”

“Oh, no, don’t you dare leave me alone with that . . . drunken wastrel and that terrible barbarian he has with him. In what gutter did you find that monster? He’s not only badly dressed, but also unspeakably hairy—”

“Firminius,” Lucius said, “I would like to keep this conversation within the limits of civilized discourse, but you’re trying my patience. You two, go!”

“No, don’t you dare go.” Firminius seized Castor’s arm. “Lucius, if you don’t leave this minute, I’ll have my two friends here expel you and your hairy friend from my chamber right now. I have a delicate constitution and I can’t function if my sleep is disturbed . . . No, please, please, get them out of here. Mistress Fulvia will be ever so grateful if you sweep this trash out into the hall now—”

“They’re both trained gladiators,” Lucius told Cut Ear.

Cut Ear laughed.

The two “gladiators” advanced on both of them.

Lucius reached for his sword.

Cut Ear drew and Lucius found out why he’d laughed. In a movement so quick Lucius’ eyes couldn’t follow it, Cut Ear slammed the drawn sword into the side of Castor’s skull. Castor stood looking stunned for a moment, then his eyes rolled back in their sockets till only the whites showed and his knees folded. He sank to the floor and lay still.

Cut Ear laughed again and flourished the sword at Pollux. “Him, I give a nice rest You, I gut. Come on.”

Firminius shrieked. Pollux ran.

Lucius kicked the door shut behind him. “Block it,” he told Cut Ear.

Cut Ear did, pushing a big clothes chest in front of it.

Lucius found himself in the ridiculous position of chasing Firminius ’round and ’round the bed.

Cut Ear returned and settled the matter by kicking Firminius’ legs out from under him and placing one large foot on his chest when he tried to rise.

Firminius began to scream. Cut Ear disposed of this problem by slapping him hard.

Firminius’ head bounced against the marble floor and his eyes got a hazy look in them.

“Firminius, listen to me. If you scream again—”

“You give one ear,” Cut Ear said.

“Very good,” Lucius said admiringly. “Yes, Firminius. My friend here is called Cut Ear. Do you know why?”

Eyes now wide with terror, Firminius shook his head.

“Because he likes to collect them as souvenirs. He threads them on a chain and hangs them around his neck. He’s starting a new collection and, if you scream again, one of yours will be his first one . . . or possibly two.”

Firminius nodded.

“Now, I’m going to ask you some questions and I’d better get the right answers because if I don’t . . . well, I collect eyes,” Lucius said, drawing his dagger. “I put them in little glass bottles, preserve them in wine, and keep them under my bed. I need two more, to complete my set of ten. Yours will do nicely. Now, where is Philo?”

Lucius watched various expressions chase each other across Firminius’ face. Fear, not of him but probably Fulvia. Anger, since he probably wanted to see Philo suffer. Rage, because he found the position he was in humiliating. Denial, since he was sure Lucius wouldn’t do anything to him. Better break that up. Lucius tested the tip of his dagger on Firminius’ cheek. A line of blood appeared.

Firminius huffed. “No—”

Lucius drew another line, this one deeper.

Firminius gargled, “Noooo . . .”

“Silence is not an acceptable answer, Firminius,” Lucius snarled, and positioned the tip of his dagger over the man’s left pupil.

He broke.

The answer dismayed Lucius even more than giving it did Firminius. “You see,” he said spitefully, “nothing you do can help him. Not now.”