Night of the Wolf (39 page)

“No,” he whispered, “no, don’t. You’ve gotten him in the lung. In a few moments, he won’t be able to breathe, then it’s over.” He knew this as well as she.

Dryas drove the spear between the charging animal’s ribs, but it came up the spear, mouth open, yellow tusks ready to tear into her shoulder and neck. She leaped back, but she’d forgotten where she was and her body slammed into the stone side of the arena.

The gaping mouth closed on her ankle, but she was in motion, hands on the boar’s back, in full vault over its back, feet in the air. One was bleeding and she landed on one side, catching herself on her left arm.

The boar turned, mouth agape, tusks low.

He has me,
Dryas thought.
This is death.
Her hand skidded on the sand and she went down on her side, looking into the creature’s eyes.

One step it came. Two steps. She’d driven the spear through its body. It wheezed, gurgled, and then it lay, legs folded under it, while Dryas got to her feet.

She found she was shaking all over, but it wasn’t visible to the men in the box.

The boar wheezed again as Dryas backed away from it, then again as bright blood splashed from the gaping mouth down onto the sand. Then and only then did it die.

Dryas looked at her left hand. She’d skinned the side and the raw patches oozed blood. There were some shallow gashes near her ankle made by the animal’s teeth. None of the injuries was serious.

Behind her, she heard the portcullis rising. The chains pulling it clanked.

Antony sat back. “What a fight.” He pointed at Dryas. “But you can’t tell me that’s a woman. It just can’t be. No, I don’t believe it, not even if every vestal in Rome swore to it.”

Dryas stared up at the men, her head tilted back slightly. Lucius found he didn’t care much for the look she gave him—she hadn’t directed so quelling a stare at the boar. Then she turned and walked toward the opening below the portcullis. In the bright morning light, it yawned like a cave.

Just before she reached it, she turned, pulled off the mail shirt and threw it to the sand. Then she tore away the scarlet loincloth, throwing it aside, and stood naked before them.

Lucius felt his mouth go dry and again he was glad he wore a toga, then realized he wasn’t wearing it. He’d shrugged it off sometime during the fight. Then he noticed the other men weren’t paying one bit of attention to the state of his soul.

Antony made a sound reminiscent of the boar.

And Caesar said, “I don’t think there’s any doubt we’re looking at a woman. No! No doubt at all.”

XXI

He hadn’t known there were so many of them. He’d never seen this many before. How did they feed themselves? Keep from going insane? The crowding was appalling and he understood why their senses were so blunted. The city was so aroma laden that he found himself verging on losing his ability to think coherently. He simply—not even with a human brain—he simply couldn’t process this much information at once.

He was riding in a litter and the grunting men, twelve of them bearing his weight, gave off an overpowering stench of fear and of the secretions of physical exertion that drenched their skins at both armpit and groin.

Fear because they were human beasts of burden and a driver followed them with a long whip coiled in his hand. The litter belonged to Amborux. When any of the slaves flagged or dropped below a certain pace, the whip cracked. Maeniel had noticed the men were marked by red welts on different parts of their bodies. Now he knew why.

The litter had been awaiting him in Ostia when he got off the ship. How Blaze had gotten the message to Amborux, he had no idea, but several of the Gaul’s guards and the litter were at the dock. Maeniel loaded four sacks of gold and climbed in after them, wondering about the motive power of his transport. Now he knew. The men trotting along beneath him were very uncomfortable and, because they were, so was he.

The noise was overpowering. The shouts of hawkers mixed with those of patrons quarreling with the shopkeepers whose establishments verged on the street. The bustle and noise, the constant babble of human speech, footsteps, creaking handcarts, the thud of hammers and the scraping of plasterers when they passed a construction site. The omnipresent odors rising from cookshops, wine bars, butchers, sausage sellers, vintners, and bakeshops and underlain by stagnant sewage, urine, feces, damp timber, organic garbage, dry and damp rot, and decay, almost overpowered his senses.

Crack. Crack. Crack. The men under him began to jog as they entered the Forum. He hadn’t believed they could move faster, but given the encouragement of the driver’s whip, he found they could. The guards pushed the crowd aside as they passed the Rostra.

The litter turned into a courtyard surrounded by stalls. Men sat in them, guarded by huge gladiators and chained mastiffs. Wolfhounds, he noted with some alarm.

The bearers set the litter down. “Gently!” the driver roared, and the whip cracked again. When the short legs on the bottom touched the cobbles, the wolf didn’t feel a bump.

He stepped out of the litter before the largest stall. The shutters, reinforced with iron, stood open, and the proprietor sat next to a brazier. He was an ascetic-looking bald Greek named Dophanes. Blaze and Amborux had recommended him.

Maeniel picked up the four sacks of gold. He placed them on the table in front of the banker. Two assistants scurried out and began to count the gold in the sacks. When they saw there were many other kinds of coins present besides the Roman aureus, they began separating them and brought out scales to weigh the unfamiliar ones.

Maeniel fished around in his purse and handed the driver two silver coins to buy refreshment for himself and his men. He asked that he include the bearers who, despite the chill air, looked thirsty and exhausted. This was a magnificent sum to men who were used, at best, to seeing only copper money.

Two of the guards, sent out to buy, soon returned with an armload of bread with sausage, onion, and pine nuts; four whole jugs of wine; fowl, including chicken, woodcock, and squab; sizzling sausages wrapped in some discarded book paper; and a clay pan of pork stewed with grape must, onions, turnips, and carrots.

Everyone sat down right where they were and fell to, while Maeniel, who had been warned by Blaze and Mir, kept an eye on the gold, making sure the count was an honest one.

Maeniel stood there in tunic and toga. No, he wasn’t entitled to wear one since he was not a Roman citizen, but, after all, of what people are werewolves? He’d as well be Roman as not.

The slaves, who had been silently cursing him since Ostia, began not exactly blessing him, but were willing to believe he was a kinder man than experience suggested.

When the weighing and counting was finished, Maeniel found himself a wealthy man, even by Roman standards. However, instead of conducting him to Amborux’s villa, he was taken to lodge with Manilius and Felex. He refused to get back into the litter and walked the rest of the way to the villa. He embarrassed, exasperated, and infuriated his guards by turns, because he wished to investigate everything.

He stopped at a sausage seller’s stall and tried one of every kind, then ambled into a tavern where the tavernkeeper and a woman were putting one of the tabletops to an unusual use. The man’s tunic was tucked up above his waist, as was the woman’s clothing, but the outraged guards noted she wore the stola of a respectable married woman.

The guards were getting ready to hustle Maeniel out, when the man jumped off the screaming woman, snatched up a pot of soup from the stove, and threw it at all of them.

Maeniel only just avoided turning wolf by a hair. He caught the change and turned it back while he was ducking under a table. The guards fled in all directions, as did the woman. Some of the soup landed perilously close to her. The soup contained an unpleasantly large amount of fat, making for bad burns where it splattered on human skin.

The woman turned around at the door, screaming curses at her lover. The guards crept out of whatever refuge they had taken: most, like Maeniel, from under tables; one had been clinging to a ceiling beam; two others came from out in the street.

Then Maeniel found himself defending the unfortunate tavernkeeper from the guards who wanted to drown, or at least dip, him in a pot of boiling water. The woman added her vote to theirs: she was unhappy about the near miss with the soup. She went after her lover with teeth and fingernails since she was otherwise unarmed.

The neighbors gathered and were vastly entertained.

Maeniel noted a large man bearing down on them. Her husband? The crowd scattered. He was evidently known and feared in the vicinity.

The large man somehow became convinced Maeniel was insulting his wife, and the tavernkeeper was defending her honor. The large man had a sword.

Both Maeniel and the guards opted for the better part of valor and ran, followed by the litter bearers.

When they reassembled several streets away, Maeniel tapped the guards for explanations. They supplied them, along with a considerable catalog of obscenities, some of which didn’t translate out of Latin well and in which Maeniel was deeply interested. He was aware of the private nature of the act of love, including the fact that humans were unhappy when interrupted, but he was in the dark so far as the outrage created by the woman’s respectable dress in a less-than-respectable situation. He was duly enlightened. He was also persuaded to promise to be more circumspect in his explorations.

He kept his promise, detouring only long enough to buy bread with a delicious honey crust, enough for the whole party. They marched along, munching and drinking.

He paused to buy an unusual hat. Made to keep off the sun, it was in the form of a large cabbage with the leaves tied up with string at the center. The wearer untied as many leaves as were necessary to keep the rays from reaching face, ears, neck, etc.

His guards found it ridiculous enough to arouse them to laughter and even the litter bearers, the most repressed individuals in the group, managed a few grins and titters.

They were immediately sobered when Maeniel started a near riot in the Forum by throwing silver to some children who were dancing to the music of a double flute.

Thereafter he was hustled along more quickly until the whole party reached the house of Manilius and Felex on the Palantine.

The group was ushered through the door by a beautiful young man dressed as a woman. He had auburn hair and was wearing green silk, makeup, and perfume.

“Nice dress,” Maeniel said to the doorkeeper.

“Yes, green, just my color.” He purred and patted a rather elaborate coiffure done up with ringlets and a diadem.

He guided Maeniel into a peristyle crowded with people, about eight women and ten or so men, in various states of dishabille, all walking among very fresh-looking flowers and plants.

Early roses; irises; ferns; lilies; white, pink, and mauve sage; magnificently blue flowering acanthus just lifting its complex spikes from its floret of decorative leaves. Violets were everywhere, blooming in low clay pans: purple, white, yellow-purple, ordinary yellow, and the odorous, shy, simple blue.

The human beings were, if possible, even more colorful. Everywhere the eye roved it fell on jewels: red, blue, orange amethyst, black onyx, hematite, and a rainbow of pearls—pink, white, blue, brown, and shimmering black. The dresses were of rainbow hue and material: silk, silk linen, wool linen, and block-printed cotton. Scarlet, green, orange, flame, bluebell, rose, yellow, brown, or even black: any and every known combination. And it went without saying all the faces were made up, and the air was heavy with perfume.

From his minders, Maeniel heard the sounds of stifled mirth, guffaws, hoots, giggles, coughs, and even strangulation as some tried too hard to control their amusement.

The ladies and gentlemen in the garden didn’t trouble to hide their feelings. Several pointed at the cabbage hat and went into credible hysterics.

Manilius and Felex rolled their eyes heavenward.

“Oh, my dear,” Felex moaned. “What has Amborux foisted off on us now?”

For a moment, Maeniel had the experience of standing between two groups of people both laughing at each other and, by the by, at him. He wasn’t sure he was enjoying the situation, but he was a patient creature. So he swept off the cabbage hat, bowed to Felex and Manilius, and smiled.

Manilius pressed his palms together as if praying. “Oh . . .”

Felex looked bowled over. “My . . .”

The women rose from their chairs and migrated toward him in a group.

“My,” said one wearing a flame-colored chiton, “isn’t he . . .”

“Just adorable . . .” This lady wore a stola with about six layers of green silk gauze.

Maeniel began to kiss hands, a custom he really enjoyed.

Lucius walked away from the arena without being aware of where he was.

Cut Ear murmured, “Caledoni.”

“Wha-what?” Lucius asked.

“Caledoni. Her tribe.” Cut Ear’s face was stiff with disapproval. “Should be dead.”

“I agree. She shouldn’t have been able to kill that boar with two light spears, but she did,” Lucius replied, still awed.

“No!” Cut Ear’s voice was loud. “She be dead before allow . . . such use. Sacred war woman. No, is no Latin. War priestess, war queen, call Valkyrie, rider of storm on wind. Finger points.” Cut Ear lifted his hand and pointed. “Finger falls on you, you dead. Put you first into fight naked, hand you over to battle power for victory. Caledoni.” Then he would say no more, not in Latin anyway, and wandered off, muttering to himself.

Lucius sympathized with him. He felt more or less the same way himself, but for, no doubt, completely different reasons.

His imagination kept playing back a picture of her standing before the portcullis. His mind kept increasing the details of what he’d seen. No, she couldn’t possibly have looked
that
good.
I have been without a woman too long. I should have done something about it weeks ago. I just need a little of the relaxation sex provides.

By now, it was midmorning and the day was shaping up to be a warm one. He kept avoiding any spot where he might meet others. He wanted to be rid of the vision haunting him, and yet he didn’t, finding his thoughts sought the picture of her standing proud and yet vulnerable, alone before the darkness, in the shadow of the ivory walls ringing the arena, on the white sand.

He was so deep in thought that he wasn’t sure where he was until he stumbled on a flagstone pushed up by a tree root in a disused courtyard. He looked around, conscious for the first time where his straying feet had carried him.

This was the oldest part of the villa, but not remodeled like the peristyle near the atrium with its ancient cistern. He’d lived with his mother and father here during his youth until his sixteenth year, when the changes in Roman society had forced his parents to spend money modernizing their home, making it a fit residence for the rich, important Basilian family.

Near the entrance were the reception rooms where his father and Aristo met and greeted his business associates, dependants, and supporters—clients, in Roman parlance— creditors, freedmen, and slaves, all of whom were engaged in his various and manifold business ventures.

His mother had a suite of rooms near here where she assiduously cultivated her aristocratic connections with the Julian family, Caesar’s relatives, as a means to her husband’s ends. In the afternoon, she went off quietly to drink. As a child, he had never understood what the thick odor of alcoholic perspiration that always surrounded her by suppertime meant, but he sensed there was some unhappiness between her and his father. Still, they were both kind to him and, all in all, even with Fulvia’s constant mischief, he’d been happy.

Now the garden was overgrown, the old flowerbeds infested with winter-brown weeds. However, the box hedges were still green, as were the tall cypresses. The pool was filled with cress and white-flowered water mint, and the carp he remembered as a child still lived there.

He thought
she
must still be here

Yes, she stood among the cypress, box, and dead rose canes at the apex of the pool near his boyhood room: Venus stepping into the bath. The legs were greenish with damp, one forever poised over the water. She was no masterpiece, but a mass-produced product of one of the more commercial Hellenistic city-states founded by the successors of Alexander. A cheap knockoff of the classical statuary Greece was famous for.

Her face was ugly with a large, underslung jaw, but the sculptor had the body right. As an imaginative thirteen-year-old, her face hadn’t been the part of her that interested him most.