Lucrezia licked her lips. “We were caught out by the storm and spent the night in the gracious company of the abbot of Saint-Denis. The monks were most generous and lent us their sleigh and two fresh horses.”
“Did they? I shall pay them a visit to thank them for their consideration.”
“That’s the truth.”
“I have no reason to think otherwise.”
Montguillon reached into the sledge and pulled back the blanket on her lap to reveal the head of a large dog.
“No, don’t do that, she’s ill,” Lucrezia said, and covered the dog’s head again.
Lorenzo got a good look before she did. A mastiff.
“Beautiful dog,” Montguillon said. “Very much like the one hung over the river next to the Petit Pont, but a bit smaller I think.” A cunning smile crossed his face. “Very popular these Bordeaux mastiffs. I can see why a highborn lady would want one on the road to guard against bandits and wolves. Although it is curious to see another one so soon. They are not so common as that.”
Lorenzo cleared his throat. He was terrified of this sharp turn in Montguillon’s attention, and from the wide-eyed look on his brother’s face, it was clear that Marco wasn’t going to contradict the prior, even as the man drew closer to an outright accusation.
“We have to go,” Lorenzo said, “unless we want to be caught out ourselves. We have urgent business to attend. Please excuse us, my lady. We’ll send help.”
Montguillon turned with flashing eyes. “You will stay quiet.”
“There’s no need to harass this fine lady.”
Lucrezia lifted her chin. “I have my own urgent business, and it does not concern any of you. And I resent these insinuations. Do not forget that I am the widow of Lord d’Lisle, and by marriage the king’s cousin.”
“The king’s
second
cousin,” Montguillon said. “Yes, that is true. A devout man, our sovereign. Not likely to contest a Papal bull.” He reached into his robe and took out a leather satchel of the kind that protected important papers. “Does your man read?”
“I can read them myself. But I have no need. Carry on. We don’t need or want your help.”
Lucrezia’s man had stayed out of the discussion to this point, conversing instead in a low voice with Fournier, who’d climbed down to speak one servant to another. In contrast to the four stamping, anxious draft animals brought from the abbey, these two were beat down, heads hanging. As Lucrezia said this last part, Martin came around the sledge, pushing through the snow with thick legs.
“My lady, that is not entirely true,” he said. He nodded at the two smaller horses. “They won’t pull much longer. Perhaps the holy father could—”
“No, Martin. We can manage. On foot, if necessary.”
“Your man is right,” Montguillon said. “Our sleigh has plenty of room.”
“What about the sledge?” Lucrezia said. “And the horses. I can’t leave them here—I promised to return them to Saint-Denis.”
“Untie the horses and bring them along behind,” he said. “We’ll send someone back for the sledge.”
At last she nodded and agreed to ride with them.
For someone so pressed, the prior seemed unconcerned about the delay. It was some time before they transferred over the two newcomers and the dog, while Simon, Fournier, and Martin roped Lucrezia’s two horses behind the now overburdened sleigh. The last item to come over was an iron-bound oak trunk carrying the lady’s wardrobe.
Lucrezia sat in the back with her dog, but when Lorenzo tried to climb in next to her, offering to carry some of the weight of the dog on his lap, Montguillon stopped him.
“No, you’ll ride up front with me.” He lowered his voice and whispered in Lorenzo’s ear. “You have faced enough temptation for one day.”
“Yes, Father.”
Simon drove the horses from the perch, with Martin, Fournier, Montguillon, and Lorenzo squeezed into the front row. That left Marco alone on the back row with Lucrezia and her dog. The sleigh lurched into motion.
Montguillon ignored Lorenzo’s suggestions to stop for lodging in Villepinte, and they continued through Thieux as well. The horses from Saint-Jacques were up to the task, and with the sleigh cutting a path through the snow and Lucrezia’s smaller animals no longer pulling, they kept up as well. Even so, their pace had slowed. By the time they passed through Thieux, the shadows in the narrow streets of the tiny walled village had grown long.
And it was still snowing.
“We’ll never make it by dark,” Lorenzo told Montguillon as the prior kept them moving north.
“We’ll make it.”
Chapter Nine
Marco grew cozy with Lucrezia throughout the afternoon. Lorenzo turned as if to stare at the spire of a distant village church, or study their surroundings whenever they approached the woods. In reality, he was stealing glances at Marco and Lucrezia.
They’d begun their shared journey sitting on opposite sides of the back row of the sleigh, with the dog between them. But when it grew cold, they spread the dog across their laps and then covered both dog and hands with a blanket. They were sitting closer than strictly necessary. Lorenzo imagined their fingers entwining. Or what if she was stroking his thigh?
“A hair shirt helps with those feelings,” Montguillon said in Latin, his voice low.
Lorenzo was turned at that moment and caught a glance from Lucrezia as she looked up. Marco was whispering something that had her smiling.
“What do you mean?” Lorenzo asked the prior as he turned back around.
“That woman is a temptress. Her beauty is almost unnatural. It causes physical pain to feel, and when she smiles and your fires are stirred, lust and a desire to fornicate is the result.”
“Is it her fault that she’s beautiful? Would you rather she were ugly?”
“Certainly not. All that is beautiful glorifies Him. But the devil is cunning, and uses such beauty to set snares. Such as the one in which you are trapped, my young friend.”
“What does that matter? I’m not a friar any longer. I’m free to marry.”
“It is indeed better to marry than to burn,” Montguillon said. He glanced over his shoulder. “And it may be that the widow marries into the Boccaccio family. But not to you.”
At that moment, Lucrezia laughed at something Marco was whispering in her ear. Lorenzo’s face flushed.
“She is a pretty young woman,” the prior said, “but do you know what I feel when I look at her? Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Lorenzo found that hard to believe.
“I’m not a eunuch escaped from the Sultan’s harem.” Montguillon smiled. “And I’m not a secret sodomite. The reason is my hair shirt.”
“How would that help?”
“At every moment you feel the maddening itch. Every turn, every bend. Apart from increasing a desire to sit still and listen for the voice of God, the shirt counters the desires of the flesh. That is why I feel nothing, not because I am not cursed with the same lusts as any other man.”
“I’d need more than a shirt to get Lucrezia out of my mind. Hair sheets on my bed when I sleep. A hair washcloth when I bathe. And a hair codpiece for the rest of the day.”
“A shirt is sufficient. Try it, you’ll see.”
Lorenzo didn’t say anything more, afraid that if he expressed any more skepticism, the prior’s suggestion would turn to a command. Between last night’s beating and the thought of wearing a hair shirt next to the skin, his earlier complaints about the yellow cross pinned to his cloak seemed trivial. He barely noticed the thing anymore.
To distract himself, he addressed Fournier in French. He hadn’t received a full accounting of the household from Giuseppe’s manservant. Much of the staff had been let go since Giuseppe’s disappearance, but what had been the expenses before the cutbacks? Lorenzo would have to know in case they needed to hire a new agent.
Fournier knew the figures by memory. The wine budget was high, but foodstuff seemed cheaper than it would be in Tuscany, which was a surprise, given how hungry many Parisians looked, especially the children of the poorer classes.
The light was failing. The snow had stopped at last, except for a few large, crystalline flakes that swirled in lazy spirals to the ground. A full moon appeared through gaps in the clouds.
“How much longer?” Marco asked from the back seat.
“Five miles,” Montguillon said.
“Nightfall in half an hour.”
“Then we’ll travel by moonlight. It’s too late to turn back now.”
The ache in Lorenzo’s feet, legs, and buttocks from his beating at the hand of the old friar gave way to exhaustion. He’d been awake most of the night and on the road all day. He was warm now, and the smooth motion of the sleigh across the blanket of snow was like the gentle rocking of a baby cradle. He closed his eyes.
Lorenzo couldn’t have slept more than five minutes, when a low growl startled him awake. Lucrezia’s dog had lifted its head out of the blanket and was staring into the twilight, chest rumbling. Marco moved hastily to the other side of the sleigh to get away from the dog’s powerful jaws.
“What is it, Tullia?” Lucrezia asked. “Do you hear something, my girl?”
The dog glared into the darkening landscape and growled.
“What’s wrong with her?” Lorenzo said.
“I don’t know. She hears something. Maybe a rider? A crofter’s dog barking in the distance? Maybe . . . something else. Hurry, driver.”
“Yes, faster, Simon,” Montguillon said.
“They’re tiring,” the young friar called back. “Any faster and they’ll give out.”
“What do you mean
something
?” Lorenzo asked Lucrezia. “What kind of something?”
“I don’t know. She’s protective, sometimes to a fault. It may be nothing—I’m sure it’s nothing.”
But no sooner had these words come out of her mouth than a high wail carried through the cold night air from somewhere to their rear.
Lorenzo’s heart lurched in his chest. No, nothing to worry about. It was distant. A hunting wolf, but not anywhere near here. There was no reason to assume that wolves—
And then an answering howl sounded from the woods to their right.
✛
It didn’t take much from Simon to get the tired horses pulling with renewed vigor. Lucrezia’s two horses, who had been dragging at the end of their ropes some dozen feet back, suddenly broke into trots until they were right off the back runners of the sleigh.
“Slothful beasts,” Montguillon muttered. “They had the strength all along.”
“Terror has a way of summoning hidden reserves,” Lorenzo said. “Even from a horse.”
It had been a mile since they’d passed the last farm, and pasture gave way to mixed meadows and woods. Not deep forest, but the trees grew thicker, copses turning into groves. The road climbed a hill, which lay silhouetted ahead of them. If they could reach the summit, the downward slope would pull at the sleigh, they’d gain speed and come into Lord Nemours’s lands at a good clip.
Lorenzo stared into the twilight behind them. Looking for movement. The freshly fallen snow was deep enough to hamper pursuit, even by wolves. Any attack had to come up the road, in the path cleared by the sleigh.
Lucrezia turned as well. She’d given up trying to quiet Tullia, who sat upright with her massive head sticking out of the sleigh, still growling into the night.
“Don’t worry, my lady,” Marco said. “They won’t attack us.”
He took Lucrezia’s hands in his. Lorenzo felt a twinge of jealousy when she didn’t pull away. Instead, she looked into Marco’s eyes and nodded. Her mouth drew together in a worried line.
“You’ll be safe, I promise,” Marco said.
“He’s right,” Lorenzo said. “Wolves kill children, the elderly, the careless. They won’t attack a moving sleigh with six horses and as many men. And the dog. She’s enough to chase off any wolf.”
“Not these wolves,” Lucrezia said.
Montguillon fixed her with a sharp look. “What do you know about them?”
“Nothing. I’ve heard stories, that’s all.”
Were they talking about wolf men again? Crossing the bridge onto the Cité, and again when Montguillon was carrying on at the priory, Lorenzo had dismissed the talk as superstition. But at nightfall, the road penetrating the forest, with wolves howling in the night behind, it suddenly seemed plausible.
Simon used the whip as they slowed going up the hill. The sleigh threatened to slide to a halt. Martin and Fournier jumped out to lighten the load, and Lorenzo and Marco followed their lead. Snow came nearly to their knees. Weight lifted, the sleigh lurched forward with renewed speed. The four men ran to keep up. The two loose horses jostled them out of the way. Their eyes rolled back in terror and they snorted and shook their heads.
“Get back, you!” Martin shouted. He slapped the horses’ rumps to move them out of the way of the running men.
Lucrezia leaned over the back of the sleigh. Struggling to keep up, Lorenzo met her eyes and gave a sheepish smile at the ridiculousness of the situation. Nightfall, struggling through the cold, wet snow. His feet still ached from the previous night’s beating at the hands of the old friar. They’d passed several inns and here they were at risk of spending a night out of doors.
She didn’t smile back. Instead, her frown deepened, and her eyes kept flickering over his shoulder, to what Lorenzo thought was his brother.
Lucrezia shouted something at the driver, but Lorenzo didn’t pick out her words over his own ragged breaths and the pounding of hooves and the crack of the whip. He glanced at the prior and felt a flood of fear at the man’s expression.
Montguillon stared with bulging eyes beyond the running men and horses. His lips moved at running speed, as he chanted something in a low voice. He crossed himself.
Lorenzo looked back. Martin, Fourier, and Marco ran with slack, frightened expressions. The two horses jerked their heads at the ropes, nostrils flaring, eyes wild, still trying to get through in spite of Martin’s rebuke.
A dozen shadows flanked the road some hundred yards back. Wolves. Cloaked by the gloom of twilight, they emerged from the woods and meadows on either side. They fought through drifts of snow and weren’t yet closing the gap. But soon they would reach the road and the parallel tracks of the sleigh’s runners, which cut a convenient path toward their quarry.