Lucrezia released her grasp on the wall. Her hands were numb and she’d been gripping so tightly the crenelations had bit into her palms.
“I couldn’t see which wolf,” she began, hardly daring to hope. “Did we get him?”
“No,” Lorenzo said, his tone glum. “I think that was Giuseppe. The red wolf escaped.”
Chapter Fifteen
Lorenzo meant to leave at first light. The weather was warming, and he was afraid the roads would turn to a slushy, muddy mess, which ruled out either the sleigh or a carriage. They had to travel by horseback.
Lucrezia said she could ride, so Lorenzo searched out the castle steward. He convinced the man to lend them three men-at-arms and enough horses to carry the entourage back to Paris. But when he went to tell Montguillon of the arrangements, he found the man locked in his chamber. The younger friar, Simon, stood outside the door, wringing his hands. The prior was deathly ill, and would see no one.
Lorenzo hunted down his brother in the chapel, where they’d laid out the dead guard killed in the dungeon. A priest prayed over the body, while two old women from the village wrapped it in linens to prepare it for burial. They’d lit a fire in the courtyard, where they were burning the dead wolf to ash. That wolf had once been a man, Lorenzo reminded himself—Giuseppe Veronese. May God have mercy on his soul.
Marco nodded grimly when Lorenzo entered the chapel. A scowl came over his face when Lorenzo told him about Montguillon.
“If he won’t come, let him rot,” Marco said.
“And what if he turns into a wolf?”
“Then they can kill him like they did Giuseppe.”
“They didn’t have any choice,” Lorenzo said.
“Of course there was a choice,” Marco snapped. “If that old villain had let Lucrezia see him instead of putting the poor fellow to the question, Giuseppe might be breaking fast with us this morning, telling us what he knew. Instead, he’s dead. That’s Montguillon’s fault and I won’t forget it.”
Lorenzo leaned against one of the columns supporting the ribbed vault overhead. He still felt weak. “You were happy enough to turn me over to the prior though, weren’t you?”
Marco stared at him, as if disbelieving that anyone could make such a stupid comparison. “To preserve your soul. Don’t you see? Montguillon as good as sent Giuseppe to hell himself. He died in the service of the devil. Even now he is suffering the eternal fire.”
“That’s ridiculous. You don’t know that. Anyway, you understand now. I saw the horrified look on your face when they stretched Giuseppe. What do you think they did to me?”
“Penance. That was different. Earthly pain to save you from eternal torment in the next world. That was right and proper. This? This is different.”
Lorenzo flushed with anger. “You’re a fool.”
Marco looked back at the priest and the dead guard and crossed himself. “Never mind. We’re in agreement on one thing—you don’t like Henri Montguillon and I despise the man. So let’s leave him here. If he transforms into a wolf, fine. Nemours’s men will put him to the sword.”
“And if he recovers and comes after us in Paris?”
“Then we’ll leave France.”
It was tempting. The brothers could flee for Italy, where they had allies, resources to draw on. Pay a bribe to Rome to get an official writ exonerating them of witchcraft and heresy. But what about Lucrezia? Smuggle her out, abandon her land, titles, and fortune. Yes, that was worth it.
But there were other things troubling Lorenzo. This pack of wolves—Lucrezia might be responsible. She couldn’t leave the wolves to terrorize Paris and the surrounding countryside—not if she had the knowledge and means to stop it. And he thought she did. Why else had she rushed out to see Giuseppe?
“Where are you going?” Marco asked as Lorenzo turned to go.
To question Lucrezia. To find out what else she knows.
But he didn’t voice this aloud. He didn’t want to share what she’d told him in confidence, and he knew that Marco would muscle in. Through jealousy, if nothing else. So he lied.
“I’m exhausted and need to lie down or I won’t be fit for the road. Can you find the steward or someone else who knows the roads and see what fortifications lie between here and Paris? If we can’t make it by nightfall, we need to know where we can find lodging and provisions. I’d rather not spend the night in a village inn with those wolves on our trail.”
“Yes, good idea.”
Lorenzo felt a twinge of guilt as he watched his brother leave the chapel.
You want her for yourself.
Of course he did. He wanted Lucrezia’s gentle touch on his skin, her confidence as she shared her awful story, trusting him and nobody else. In many ways, he was no competition for his brother, who was older, more handsome, and without the stigma of a judgment from the Inquisition marking him for life.
So what do you have to offer her?
✛
It took Lorenzo several minutes to find Lucrezia. She’d left her chambers, dressed in her cloak, and scaled the walls of the chatelet to look across the countryside. Lorenzo climbed the stone staircase and stood next to her.
“You should be resting,” she said.
“I feel better,” he said, not entirely truthfully.
“Is the prior still refusing to see me?”
“He thinks he can fight it off by himself. Without witchcraft, he says.”
“It’s not witchcraft, it’s the
cure
for witchcraft. Doesn’t he see the difference?”
“I’m not sure he can, my lady.”
“If he doesn’t let me help, he’s going to turn into one of them. He might anyway—it has been so long, but I’d like to try. Can we force him?”
“We could try,” Lorenzo said, “but if it fails and he turns anyway, you’ll be accused.”
“I’m accused already. Simon will give a report when he returns and the Inquisition will come to my door.”
“Yes, but with our testimony that you tried to help and he wouldn’t let you. Anyway, we’ll protect you, no matter what.”
“So do we force him or not?” she asked. “It would be the right thing to do to help him. Also—”
“Also, what?”
“If we save him, the prior could help us track down the wolves and finish them.”
“How would he do that?” Lorenzo asked.
“He has been hunting them. I don’t know where he gains his knowledge, but it is there. He knows things.” She nodded, seemingly more convinced of her own words. “As distasteful as the prior can be, it would be worth it to stop the killing. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Lorenzo wasn’t entirely certain, but it occurred to him that if Lucrezia could heal him, Montguillon might soften his opposition. Fighting the wolves was a challenge enough without facing opposition from the church at the same time.
He hesitated. “You didn’t finish your story.”
“And you want to hear the rest,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“It was late, and I was frightened. I shouldn’t have begun a story I couldn’t complete.”
“My lady, you can tell me. I want to help.”
Lucrezia gazed across the fields beyond the moat. In the daylight, the chatelet provided a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. Snow glistened across the fields, the drifts as high as a man’s waist. A forest curved to the north and east, while a road led to the northwest. A quarter-mile from the chatelet, the road branched to connect to the highway, with the right fork turning into a rutted cow path that continued into the village, another half-mile beyond that. The village was little more than a church and a score of timbered houses, huddled together for protection, surrounded by a stone wall that might deter bandits, but wouldn’t give pause to even the smallest army.
It certainly hadn’t kept out Courtaud’s hungry pack. According to the priest, the villagers had awakened last night to the sound of howling wolves. The people had barricaded doors and stoked the fires in their hearths.
At first light, several villagers came into the streets, wailing about children who had disappeared during the night. There were four missing in all, the youngest a baby, and the oldest a fourteen-year-old boy. Villagers with axes tracked a bloody trail to the edge of the forest, but didn’t dare enter.
Lorenzo looked closer at the chatelet walls and the scene of last night’s violence. The snow on the edge of the moat was stained with blood and trampled down by men going out to retrieve the dead wolf to burn. Wolf tracks cut across the snow toward the woods. More tracks cut in from the side to join, as if other members of the pack had been lurking outside the castle walls.
“How many are there?” he asked.
“A dozen? Maybe more—their number swells.”
“By scratching and biting their victims, is that it? Their spittle carries some sort of contamination, like a rabid dog? Only instead of killing them it turns them into new wolves for the pack?”
“That isn’t their intention. They’re out to kill. They suffer a hunger that can never be satisfied, bellies that will never fill. If they catch your scent in their nostrils, they cannot be satisfied until they’ve had you. If you’re wounded, but crawl away, you’ll eventually change into one of them. They may still kill you. The stronger ones join the pack.”
Lorenzo looked down at the scratch on his arm. It wasn’t as inflamed as before, but still looked red and angry. “And me?”
“Your fever passed. I think we drove it off in time.”
“By the saints, I hope you’re right.” He put his injured arm behind his back so he wouldn’t be tempted to scratch at it. “So what about the rituals, and the duke’s first wife? They were men practicing witchcraft and wearing wolf pelts. One of them was a man named Courtaud—he’s their leader now. Was he bit?”
She didn’t answer.
“My lady?” he tried again.
“If I tell you, you won’t like it. You’ll fear and hate me.”
She turned and looked him in the eyes, the intensity of her gaze making his heart pound.
“Lucrezia, you know that isn’t true.”
Lorenzo dropped the formal Italian you—
Lei
—for the familiar, intimate
tu
. And used her Christian name at the same time, instead of addressing her as an unattached gentleman should speak to a noblewoman. One of those lapses alone might be careless familiarity. Both, together—there could be no mistaking what he meant. A flush came to her cheeks and her sensual lips drew together.
“You are a handsome man,” Lucrezia said. “And you have a good heart.”
“However—?”
She looked like she was going to say something else. Then she shook her head. “Never mind. I’m getting cold up here. Are the horses ready?”
“Not yet. My brother and I didn’t settle the matter of the prior, so Marco is consulting with the steward about where we might spend the night if we can’t make Paris by dark.”
“In that case, let’s find somewhere warmer to talk. It’s time to tell you the rest of the story.”
He stared after her as she gathered her cloak and skirts and picked her way down the staircase. In spite of his bold words moments earlier, he was afraid. What could it be, he wondered, that convinced her that his affection would turn to fear and hatred? Did she think him so shallow as that?
Or was the conclusion to her story so monstrous, so drenched in sorcery that it would prove Montguillon right? That she
was
a witch?
No, he decided. Impossible.
Chapter Sixteen
Lucrezia ordered Martin to stoke the fire, then sent her servant from the room and barricaded the door. Lorenzo remained inside with her, and she knew this would delight Lord Nemours’s men and foster the sort of talk that would follow her back to the city. But people talked about her already. A young widow always attracted malicious gossip.
Lorenzo still looked pale and sickly, so she pulled the biggest chair up to the fire, made it comfortable with pillows and insisted he sit down. Then she poured him wine.
“I haven’t broken fast yet—it will go to my head.”
“Drink a little,” she urged. “It will fortify your strength.”
And perhaps soften the blow of my awful tale,
she thought to herself.
He obeyed.
Lucrezia took a seat near the fire. Tullia lay at her feet, a powerful, comforting presence.
“I am a good daughter,” she began. “I love my father, and seek to honor him and the family. I understood that they might arrange a marriage for reasons of influence and wealth, so I tamed the desires of my heart. But I didn’t want to leave my beloved Italy for a land where few men can read and a literate woman is a rarity. When I heard that they’d send me to Paris to marry Rigord Ducy, I locked myself in my room while my mother pleaded with me to come out.
“Do you know how they finally convinced me? My father sent me to Paris with a wagon filled with books. There must have been two hundred in all—Dante, Petrarch, Virgil, Cicero, Homer, Lucretius, Ovid, Seneca. Rare copies of Arabic geometers, and texts purporting to be Greek copies of Persian copies of Indian wisdom.”
“That must have cost a small fortune.”
“The duke gave my father a dowry of five thousand livres and two thousand acres in the Dordogne. Father could afford to be generous.”
Lorenzo’s eyes widened.
“Rigord called me the most beautiful woman in the world.” She was embarrassed to say it aloud and expected Lorenzo to heap on some flattery.
He only inclined his head and gave a typically Italian shrug, as if to say “I suppose so, but tastes vary.” This brought a smile to her lips.
“My new husband had his own library, several volumes in parchment between blackened leather. All in old French or Slavonic tongues. I couldn’t even read the French at first, but when I’d picked up more of the language, and had read and reread my own volumes, I revisited his library while Rigord was fighting next to the king in Rouen. It was a great disappointment.
“There was no poetry, no natural philosophy or classical mathematics. Not even theology. Instead, it was strange, superstitious nonsense. Alchemy, potions, spells. Incantations to call on the fairy folk or ward the evil eye. Someone had collected every bit of superstition and witchcraft from Ireland to Scythia and written it down. My husband had scrawled notes in the margins. This spell didn’t work, this one did, but not in the way it promised. This one should be investigated, but one must first acquire the fresh foreskin of a Saracen. Ridiculous, credulous notes, all written in the most appalling, spider-like hand.”