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Synopsis

Decadent Rome at the dawn of the Dark Ages is mired in crumbling grandeur. Now, into the Eternal City comes Regeane, a beautiful young woman distantly related, through her dead mother, to Charlemagne. Regeane's regal blood renders her an unwilling pawn in the struggle for political power. But unknown to those plotting against her, the blood she has inherited from her murdered father makes her much more than a child of royalty. Possessed of preternatural agility and strength, primal memories extending back thousands of years, and senses so keen they can pierce the veil of death itself, Regeane is a shapeshifter: woman and wolf, hunter and hunted.

Betrothed by Charlemagne's command to a barbarian lord she has never seen, Regeane is surrounded by enemies. The most notorious, her depraved uncle and guardian, will not scruple to betray her to the Church unless she aids him in his sinister schemes. And if the Church discovers her secret, Regeane will burn at the stake. Yet Regeane finds allies as well: Lucilla, rumored to be the private courtesan of Pope Hadrian himself; Antonius, a wise and gentle soul trapped within a body grotesquely disfigured by disease; and the little Saxon girl Elfgifa, brave beyond her years, with a tongue as sharp as a blade.

Outside the gates of Rome, baying on the moonlit expanses of the Campagna, there is a mysterious dark wolf whose scent makes the animal in Regeane tremble with desire. Now, as an infamous stranger prepares to claim his bride, deadly plots and counter plots tighten like a noose around her neck, Regeane must fight to live with dignity as the proud creature she is: civilized and savage, woman and wolf, partaking of both yet infinitely more than either...

Excerpt

The sun was going down. The fiery circle shone past the acanthus-crowned columns of a ruined temple. They cut the incandescent ball into slices of red radiance. Almost night, the girl thought. She shivered in the chill autumn air gusting through the unglazed casement window.

It was barred--heavily barred. One set of bars ran horizontally, the other vertically. They were bolted into the stone walls of the tiny room.

She knew she should close the window. She should reach out through the bars, pull the heavy shutters shut, and seal them with the iron bolt. But she pushed the idea out of her mind with a sort of blind obstinacy. The sight of freedom, even an unattainable freedom, was too sweet to give up.

Not yet, she told herself, only a little longer. Not yet.

The air that raised goosflesh on her arms was sweet to her nostrils. Oh no, more than sweet. Each vagrant increase in flow, each slight change in direction, each passing movement sent images to the deepest part of her mind.

She could sense the fragrance of thyme. The delicate scent was mixed with the heavy smell of wet marble and granite. These scents and others stood out against the tapestry of odors given off by the flowers and greenery that cloaked the ruined palaces and temples of the ancient emporium.

The vast restless spirit of this place, the greatest of all empires, seemed at last brought to rest at the soft hand of the great green mother herself.

Regeane hadn't known what to expect of the once-proud mistress of the world when she'd come to Rome. She didn't expect what she found.

The inhabitants, descendants of a race of conquerors, lived like rats squabbling and polluting the ruins of an abandoned palace. Oblivious to the evidence of grandeur all around them, they fought viciously among themselves for what resources remained. Indeed, little was left of the once-vast river of gold that flowed into the eternal city. The gold that trickled in these days gilded the altars of the churches and the palms of papal officials.

Regeane's mother, desperate to save her daughter's soul, pawned what few jewels she had left. The money paid the bribes necessary to obtain a papal audience and finance the equally expensive papal blessing.

Regeane had gone into the awesome presence, her body drenched in a sweat of terror. If her ailing mother said the wrong words to the church's leading prelate, she might find herself being burned or stoned as a witch. But, as she approached the supreme pontiff, she realized just how foolish her fears had been.

The man before her was a ruin. Ready to be taken by age and sorrow. She doubted if he understood much of anything said to him. Weeping, her mother implored the intercession of God's chief minister on earth with the Almighty. As the ever-dutiful Regeane knelt, she kissed the silken slipper and felt the withered hands pressed against her hair.

In addition to the thick smell of incense and Greek perfume that pervaded the room, she detected the musty, dry smell of aging flesh and human decay.

God, it was powerful. He is ready to die, she thought. He will go to speak on Mother's behalf to God in person very soon. However, she knew this blessing, as all other blessings her mother, Gisela, had traveled so far and squandered so much of her wealth to gain, would do no good.

This was the end. Regeane knew it. She was frightened. If the pope himself could not lift this strange curse from her and let her live as a woman, to which earthly power could she turn? More to the point, to which power could her mother turn?

Gisela was fading as quickly as the only-too-human man on Saint Peter's throne. Though a comparatively young woman, Gisela was worn down by the fruitless journeys she had taken with Regeane and by a secret sorrow that seemed to fill her mind and heart with a bottomless wellspring of grief.

Regeane lied. Her mother believed. And for the first time in many years, Regeane felt the tiny woman who had traveled so far and borne so many burdens was at peace. Regeane's lie carried Gisela through till the end.

Three days after the papal audience she had gone to awaken her mother and found Gisela would never wake again--not in this world.

Regeane was alone, staring through the bars.

She watched with greedy eyes as the sun became a half circle that faded into a glow silhouetting the tall cypresses of the Appian Way. The deep blue autumn twilight emerged. Then, and only then, did she turn from the window and wrap herself in an old woolen mantle and return to her pallet bed. With the exception of the low bed and a small, covered, brown terra-cotta pot in the corner, the room was bare.

Regeane sat on the bed, her shoulders against the stone wall, her legs dangling, head thrown back, eyes closed. She waited silently for moonrise. The silver disc would be lifting itself above the seven hills now. Soon, very soon, its journey across the sky would bring it to her window where it would throw a pool of silver light on the floor. Ignoring the cross-hatched black lines of bars, she could drink at that pool, allowed once more to breathe in the air of freedom.

The door to the outer room slammed shut. Damnation. The girl on the bed scoured her mind for oaths. No... curses. As a young girl, she was never allowed to speak them, but she could think the words. And she often did. Oh, how she did when those two were present. There were worse things than loneliness. Overall, Regeane felt she preferred silence and emptiness to the presence of either her Uncle Gundabald or Hugo, his son.

"I pissed blood again this morning," Hugo whined. "Are all the whores in this city diseased?"

Gundabald laughed uproariously. "All the ones you find seem to be. It's as I told you. Pay a litte extra. Get yourself something young and clean. At least young--so all the itching and burning a few days later are worth it. That last you bought was so old, she had to ply her trade by starlight. What you save on whores goes out in medicines for crotch rot."

"True enough," Hugo said irritably. "You always seem to do better."

Gundabald sighed. "I'm sick of instrucing you. Next time, retain a bit of sobriety and get a look at her in a good light."

"Christ, it's cold in here," Hugo said angrily. A moment later Regeane heard him shouting down the stairs for the landlord to bring a braizer to warm the room.

"It's no use, my boy," Gundabald told him. "She's left the window open again."

"How can you stand it?" Hugo grumbled. "She makes my skin crawl."

Gundabald laughed again. "There's nothing to worry about. Those planks are an inch thick. She can't get out."

"Has she ever... " Hugo asked fearfully.

"Oh, once or twice, I believe, when she was much younger. Then I took matters in hand. Gisela was too soft. That sister of mine was a fine woman--she always did as she was told--but she was weak, my boy, weak. Consider the way she wept over that first husband of hers when the marriage was so abruptly... terminated."

"She divorced him?" Hugo asked.

"Ah, yes," Gundabald sounded uneasy. "To be sure, we told her to divorce him. She had no choice in the matter. Even then, everyone could see Charles' mother was becoming a power at court. There were many well-endowed suitors for Gisela's hand. The second marriage was much better--it made us all wealthy."

"Now all that's gone," Hugo said bitterly. "Between you and Gisela, if our coffers have a miserable copper in them we're lucky. You always wanted to rub shoulders with the great magnates of the Frankish realm. In order to do that, your shoulders had to be covered with velvet and brocade. And, oh yes, the magnates wanted to feast. Worse than a horde of vultures, they swarmed over your household devouring everything in sight. And like vultures after the carcass was picked clean, they departed in a cloud of stink and were never seen again.

"Whatever they missed, Gisela laid hands on, squandering it on relics, shrines, blessings, and pilgrimages, trying to lift the curse from that wretched brat of hers. You told me to get myself something younger. I've a good mind to pay that cousin of mine a visit... by day of course and--" Hugo screamed. "Father, you're hurting me."

Gundabald's reply was a snarl of fury. "You so much as touch that girl and I'll save us both a lot of trouble and expense. I'll slice off your prick and balls. You'll be the smoothest eunuch between here and Constantinople. I swear it. She's the one and only asset we have left and she--must--marry. Hear me!"

Hugo howled again. "Yes, yes, yes. You're breaking my arm. Oh, God. Stop!"

Hugo's howling ceased. When he did speak, he sniveled sarcastically. "Who would marry that... girl?"

Gundabald laughed. "I can name a dozen right now, who would kill to marry her. The most royal blood of Franca flows through her veins. Both her father and mother were cousins of the great king himself."

"And those same ones who'd kill to marry her will run a sword...

Copyright © 1998 by Alice Borchardt

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