“I take it the pope will not be offering him a post in the Curia,” Lorenzo said, referring to the scribes who labored in the Vatican.
“My seven-year-old nephew has more skill with the pen.” Lucrezia shook her head. “I don’t know what disappointed me more, that my husband labored through these nonsensical books or that he defaced them by scribbling so artlessly in the margins. I had new locks put on the grilles in my own library. Fortunately, he never touched them. A year later, when I caught my husband and his friends with the succubus—or what I thought was the succubus—I remembered something I’d read in one of his books.”
The hard part of her story had come. The one that exposed her culpability. She poured herself some wine and took a long sip. Then she refilled Lorenzo’s goblet.
“Tell me the rest,” he urged.
“Two nights after the obscene gathering in the library, Lord Nemours and the king summoned my husband to the Louvre to press him for funds for the war against the English. I knew he’d be gone all night, so I sent away the servants I doubted, then had Martin watch the door while I looked through the tomes. I found what I was looking for about an hour later. It was a chapter entitled ‘Man and Wolf Entwined.’ A man who could change to a wolf in the moonlight, then return to the form of a man in daylight. He’d gain an unnatural lifespan, triple the biblically allotted three score and ten.
“Not only that, but these wolf men would possess great strength, would have the ability to seduce any woman, bend the will of any man. The procedure was long and arduous, with two monstrous consequences. First, a man must sacrifice a beautiful woman to his new pack. Enslave her mind, reverse the aging, and turn her body over for their abuse. Rigord chose his first wife. I believe if he failed, if she died in their attempt, he meant to use me as a substitute. That’s what they were doing that night.”
Lorenzo looked horrified at this. “The second consequence?”
“Once they gained wolf form, they must regularly feed on human flesh or die. I couldn’t let Rigord do it.”
“This is when you decided to poison him?”
Lucrezia sighed. “Almost. First, I wanted to understand. Rigord tried to change into a wolf—had he succeeded and hidden it? I didn’t think so. He kept sending for manuscripts and I saw him in the library late at night, reading and muttering incantations. I intercepted missives to and from Courtaud that indicated they were still making an attempt. Why did they fail?”
“You didn’t dismiss the entire endeavor as superstition?”
“How could I? I had seen his first wife, her body restored to youth, her mind given over. Yes, I realized she was no succubus, she was the victim of the devilry, not the cause of it,” she added. “But when I studied the book, it appeared that Rigord, Courtaud, and the others had done the other things required—the inverted pentagram, the wolf pelts, the chants. Then I read my husband’s notes. He’d committed an error.
“The problem was in the Latin. It wasn’t the Latin of Cicero, it was the vulgar spoken in Hispania near the end of the empire. The tongue that eventually turned to Castilian. My husband had translated it in the margins, because the incantation said it should be repeated in Latin and again in the Slavonic tongue. But it didn’t provide the translation into Slavonic.”
“So your husband incorrectly translated the vulgar?”
“Because he is illiterate, yes. Then someone else—perhaps this Courtaud—translated it again into Slavonic and the incantation failed. By now a plan was coming into my head.”
“The poison?”
She sighed. “Poison might be the wrong word. I could never have killed him, not intentionally. Instead, I decided to be helpful. I studied the text, made a correct translation into French. The next day I crossed the Seine to the Collége de Sorbonne to find someone at the university who could translate it into Slavonic. A regent directed me to the monastery of Saint-Jacques, where I was told a friar knew the oldest form of this tongue.”
Lorenzo stiffened. “Saint-Jacques? Where Henri Montguillon was the prior?”
“Yes, now you see.”
“So that’s how he became involved.”
“I wasn’t careless. I did it quietly, anonymously. I have a fine pen and I wrote in Latin as if I were a certain Lucretius del Piombo, a Franciscan inquisitor. I needed the prior’s help rooting out witchcraft. Could he translate this French into Slavonic at once and give it to my courier?”
Lorenzo smiled. “Lucretius? A clever pun on the famous Epicurean. If only Montguillon were well-read enough to get the joke.” Then his smile faded. “Forging a letter from the Inquisition is a capital offense.”
“Yes, I know, but I was fighting witchcraft, or so I thought. I even invented a story about three witches and a pack of
loup-garou
, thinking if I changed enough details I would put them off the trail. I was too clever by half. Two innocent women have burned at the stake because of that lie. And now Montguillon is convinced that I’m the third witch.”
He looked away.
She continued quickly, before she could lose nerve. “I forged a second note, this one to my husband, purporting to be from his friend Courtaud. I found several of the man’s letters and had no problem copying his hand sufficient to fool Rigord. Courtaud had found the correct translation, I said, and he suggested attempting the transformation at once, rather than waiting for the others to arrive. To prove the concept.”
“Clever.”
“Too clever. Before I delivered Courtaud’s false note, I purchased two enormous mastiffs from Bordeaux. They are bred to attack wolves. For three weeks, I kept them hidden in my wing of the manor, training them to hate and fear the smell of a wolf pelt. Then I delivered the note, had Martin spy on the library for me and report when my husband began the incantation. Rigord did not disappoint.”
“And you planned for the dogs to kill him before he could change back?”
“Not kill him, no. I couldn’t do that.” Lucrezia licked her lips in memory of how things had gone so wrong.
“There was a warning at the end of the chapter in my husband’s book. While reciting the spells, all care should be taken not to touch silver of any kind. Rings, silver thread in one’s cloak, even silver candlesticks in the same room might do it. Once the transformation was complete, these things would be harmless, but should silver touch the skin at the wrong moment, one would turn into a wolf without the ability to change back into human form. Do you remember how I said they were drinking their own blood?”
“Yes, from a pewter chalice. To avoid silver, is that it?” Lorenzo looked down at his own wine, a look of distaste suddenly on his face. He set it aside.
“Before delivering the note, I sent two chalices to a silversmith, one the pewter one used by my husband in the ritual, and the other made of silver. The smith cut the base of both chalices and attached the silver base to the bottom of the pewter. Then he painted the silver base to match the color of the pewter. I returned the altered chalice to my husband’s library.
“A few nights later, Rigord took a lancet to his arm and drained blood into the pewter chalice with the silver base. While Martin and I watched, he built the pentagram, put on the wolf pelt, drank his own blood, and chanted in Slavonic and vulgar Latin. Suddenly, he screamed. The pelt on his naked shoulders started to smoke. It grew into his skin somehow. Within moments, he was a wolf.”
“My God,” Lorenzo said. “It’s . . . incredible.”
“You believe me, don’t you? I swear it’s the truth.”
“If this were anyone else telling me—if I hadn’t seen Giuseppe with my own eyes . . . yes, I do. Of course I believe you.”
She nodded, relieved. “When he’d changed, I threw open the doors and released the dogs. They attacked.”
Lucrezia closed her eyes, remembering the smell of wolf and dog. The goblet that dropped to the ground, spilling its blood. The way Rigord’s muscles heaved and strained, how he screamed as the wolf pelt merged with his skin, as the bones cracked in his face. His skin, bubbling like pats of butter dropped onto a hot skillet. The way his face lengthened and he howled in anguish.
“The wolf could still speak with a human tongue,” Lucrezia said. “When he saw me with the dogs, he cried out the words to bring him back into human form. Nothing happened. I shouted at him. ‘Go, or they’ll kill you! Run from the city! Join your brothers in the woods. I’ll kill you myself if you ever return.’ And I drew my dagger. He fled for his life. I thought it was over.
“Two weeks later, wolves began to attack travelers on the road to Troyes. Montguillon emerged from his lair at the monastery, hunting for witches. I was terrified my husband’s disappearance would come back to me, tie me to the wolves, so I concocted a story about Rigord drowning in the Seine. But then the wolves returned to Paris and attacked me in my home. The dogs drove them off, but they killed Cicero. Courtaud had become their leader—he spoke to me, threatened me.”
“Why didn’t you leave Paris?” Lorenzo said. “You’d be safe in Italy.”
“I don’t know that. Perhaps they would follow me.” She shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter, because I cannot run. I am responsible.”
“My lady, you are not.”
“Yes, I am, Lorenzo. I knew I had to stop it from spreading. So I returned to my husband’s books and scoured the libraries at the university, and learned how they could spread their numbers through contaminated wounds, and taught myself how to treat them. None of them can change back into human form, praise God. They are not true
loup-garou.
The silver keeps them all in wolf form forever.”
“One small bit of good news,” Lorenzo said.
“Meanwhile,” Lucrezia continued, “Montguillon somehow tracked down Rigord’s first wife and had her burned at the stake, together with one of her servants. He turned over two men to the city watch, who they gibbeted over the river. I tried to help them. I was convinced they were innocent.”
“The empty gibbets—that was you?”
“I bribed a guard of the watch, yes.”
“That was good of you,” he said.
“No, it was another terrible mistake. One man was already dead, and the other was in the process of changing into a wolf when I set him free. Everything I did made things worse.” She started to say more, then shook her head. “The rest you already know.”
Lorenzo looked thoughtful. To her relief, his features hadn’t hardened into hatred at hearing how she had caused all of this.
“I don’t know all of it,” he said. “How did they infiltrate the city? How did they get into the chatelet walls? You said once they change, they can’t go back. How is it that nobody notices wolves passing through the gates of Paris?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Perhaps they’re in league with some other demonic force.”
“Hmm. Perhaps.”
Lorenzo didn’t sound convinced. She wasn’t either, but she couldn’t think of any other answer. How
did
they breach the city walls?
“Do you despise me?” she asked.
“No, my lady. But you made a mistake.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You never should have dabbled in witchcraft. I hate to give credit to those villains in the Inquisition, but you should have denounced Lord d’Lisle. With as many non-existent crimes as they pursue with all vigor and holy wrath, this was a real chance to unmask evil. Instead, you’ve unleashed it on the world.”
She hung her head, stung by his words.
“Don’t tell my brother your role in this,” he said.
“You think he’d denounce me?”
“Marco isn’t immune to your charms. Who is?” A wry smile crossed Lorenzo’s face. “But we were raised in a devout home—he doesn’t have my experiences to change his mind.”
“So he
would
turn me over?”
“I hope not, but I’d rather not find out. It would tear at his conscience, that much I know for certain.”
“I won’t be burned. I’ll take my own life first.”
A noise in the hallway caught her ears—voices raised, the clank of boots. Montguillon’s voice rang out in command. Martin shouted an answering challenge. Lorenzo paled and rose to his feet. He drew his sword. Lucrezia still wore her dagger and drew it. Tullia sprang to her feet and gave a ferocious bark.
The door burst open, with Martin shoved backwards into the room at the point of two pikes. Two of Nemours’s men pushed in at the other end of the weapons. They wore breastplates and helmets. Two more men-at-arms followed, one with a drawn sword, the other with a crossbow. Finally, Montguillon and the younger friar, Simon.
Montguillon’s eyes gleamed with an unnatural light. Blood stained his white scapular and streaked down his robe, already dirty from the ride. The black cloak hung askew. He panted, mouth open and tongue lolling.
“What the devil is this?” Lorenzo demanded.
Montguillon pointed a shaking finger at Lucrezia. Spittle dripped from his lips as he spoke. “Lady Lucrezia d’Lisle of Lucca, I hereby denounce you as a witch. You shall burn at the stake.”
Chapter Seventeen
Lorenzo saw death the moment Montguillon denounced Lucrezia. Four armored men stood in front of him. Martin was disarmed, at the end of two pikes. The crossbowman had his weapon leveled at Lorenzo. One squeeze of the finger and a bolt would sink into Lorenzo’s chest. Lucrezia carried a dagger, but with a full gown-like houppelande that restricted her movement, she was hardly a match for the armored men facing her. That left Tullia, the mastiff, to defend her mistress. She might get one of them. Where in God’s name was Marco?
Lorenzo wouldn’t let Lucrezia fall to the Inquisition. Keep the men at bay for a moment, distract them—that’s all she needed. That dagger would turn to her own breast. She would end her life before they could seize her. She would not burn.
All these thoughts flashed through his mind as he rushed at Montguillon.
“No!” Lucrezia said. She was struggling with Tullia. “Lorenzo! Don’t!”
He hesitated, confused. Marco rushed into the room, crying frantically for him to stop. Lorenzo lowered his sword.
“Listen to me, all of you,” Marco said. “It’s the friar who is in league with Satan, not the lady.”
He forced his way through the men-at-arms and grabbed Montguillon’s cloak and gown at the neck, and pulled it back to reveal the weeping, pus-filled wound that gaped along his neck. Black hair surrounded the wound.