He was careless that night. He was dealing with humans and was used to having his way. The wind was at his back and there was still a lot of daylight left when he started down. In fact, it wasn't even sunset yet but the sun was behind the cliffs overlooking the valley. The river and the road lay in deep shadow, and the wind from the mountains at his back was turning cold.

Yes, there were the ancient Roman ramparts overlooking the river, the trace no more than a rocky footpath that ran down to the river's edge and followed the water below the stone-built towers. An army trying to get past would have to march almost single file between high cliffs next to a river that, now fed by snowmelt from the heights, was a raging tor-rent. But unlike the fortress, the road only narrowed for a short distance before it widened out again. The river tumbled over rapids past the Roman fort; and then beyond the fort, a town stood. Not a very large one, it was the sort of place that grows up near army depots, offering the services both desirable and necessary for military men.

The town was fortified also. It clung to a spur of rock jut-ting out into the river. It consisted of a clump of limestone buildings with red tile roofs, a stout wall, and a heavy gate to the landward side that protected it from any marauders. The position of the remaining buildings, surrounded by a raging ice-cold river, was in and of itself enough to discourage anyone bold or foolish enough to try to break in.

Beyond the town the valley widened and continued down-ward toward a pleasant-looking fertile plain.

The wolf, how-ever careless he was, wasn't foolish enough to use the road. He eased along next to it, through the thick growth of brush, tall weeds, and trees that bordered the narrow track, until he got soclose to the fortress that he realized he was in danger of being seen. So he turned and began to climb the slope behind the walls.

Yes, he thought. This one can be flanked. The place must have been unassailable in the time of the Romans. The fortifi-cations dominated the first point in the valley, the town the second, but during the years the high walls between the fortress and the town had begun to erode.

A landslide had come and created a steep ramp precisely between the town and the fortifications where once only sheer walls had stood on either side. An attacking force could circle the fortress and come down behind the defenders. The town as it stood would offer few problems to a determined group of warriors. Yes, it would be almost impossible to get into, but then its defenders would have no easy way out, either. Simply seal the gates while Charles's main army passed and leave a small garrison, and within a week or two the people inside with no way to provision themselves would surrender.

Charles would be coming from two directions, Mons Jovis and Mont Cenis. The part of the army bypassing Mons Jovis, Maeniel's alpine stronghold, could feign to be frustrated by the defenders at Susa, while the rest circled and flanked the Roman fortification.

Something like this, he was sure, had been in Charles's mind when he determined to split his army, sending one by Mons Jovis and the other at Cenis. The overall strategy was mapped out in Charles's mind already, but Maeniel or someone else familiar with the terrain would need to suggest tactical ap-proaches to him.

Maeniel paused on the almost impossibly steep slope over-looking the fortifications closing the neck of the gorge. Here he could climb no higher, but he was able to reconnoiter inside the Roman walls.

Yes, they were not closed from the rear, though the parts facing into the valley had been improved. New wooden scaffoldings had been added behind the battlements, and fresh earthworks had been thrown up in front of the walls. These earthworks had been armed with sharpened stakes to repel a cavalry charge, if necessary.

The earthworks on either side of the river extended beyond the walls all the way down to the river. From the front it looked formidable enough, and in a way even more so from the rear because it was obvious from the number of horses Maeniel saw grazing in the open valley that a considerable reserve force was present to hold the line should the attackers fail to give up easily.

The light was going now, the sun setting beyond the western peaks. Maeniel fluffed his fur. It was still cold at this altitude after sundown. He sat, head resting on his front paws, waiting for darkness, and enumerated the things he still needed to do before he could rejoin the king: draw close to the curtain wall and inform himself about how many troops held the strongpoint; make sure the town didn't contain any nasty surprises for the king; map out a path that would allow the second part of Charles's force to flank this fortress.

He felt a sharp pang of guilt about Regeane, but no doubt at all about his decision. It was sufficient to allow himself to be put in danger; if something happened to him, well and good. He could deal with it.

He'd had a good, long life and had experienced many joys and sorrows; but to put a period to the prospects of one as young as she was would be intolerable. Deep in his heart, he knew the wish to protect her was as much selfish as loving. He was certain, in the deepest and most secret part of his soul, that once having possessed her, he would simply not ever be able to live without her and that her loss would destroy him as surely as death. And so the determination to prevent her from accompanying him on this dangerous journey was a forgone conclusion.

She would forgive him. In the time they'd lived together, he'd found her loving, kind, and anxious toplease him. She was not one to cherish a grudge. So he would make peace as soon as possible. Then he sighed, wishing this business, even more foreign to his nature than to hers, was finished so he could go home and revel in the company of his beautiful wife and good friends without interference or interruption.

His eyes closed, and in true wolf fashion, he napped while waiting for nightfall.

Hugo was a big hit at the Lombard Court in Pavia. He'd picked the right person to help. Armine was the king's representative in the cloth trade. Kings have to eat. The Lombard ruler was supposed to supply himself financially from his es-tates, but the market for the wine and oil those estates produced was hit or miss at best. Most food was consumed within a few miles of its production.

Times were too unsettled for shipping; bulk items such as agricultural produce yielded little more than sporadic profit. The cloth trade was another matter. Despite poverty, church teaching, war, and civil disorder, the appetite for ostentatious apparel had only grown among the new barbarian aristocracy.

There were few other ways to make a splash and show off how successful a man was than to dress to the teeth, and everyone who possibly could did.

The silk that arrived from Constantinople at the already rising port cities on the Adriatic Sea flowed through Pavia, over the Alps, into Europe. Desiderius took his cut and Armine managed his supply routes.

Hugo was introduced as a man of ancient wisdom with much knowledge of the arts for which the ancients were renowned: a polite way to put the fact that he was learned in divination and sorcery. And while the Lombard court wasn't deficient in so-called wise men, Hugo's guest made sure that his predictions were correct and his occasional minor miracles, such as identifying hidden objects and reading messages concealed by envelopes, were genuine.

His guest did not trust Hugo with all the information he gathered. Some of it he imparted to Chiara in the garden.

"The king is not faithful."

"I don't think they are expected to be," Chiara answered. "Kings, I understand, are very much a law unto themselves, at least where women are concerned. Everyone will either pretend not to see or, if there is an acknowledgeable issue, con-gratulate him."

"Ahhh," Hugo's guest said.

"Where is Hugo?"

Hugo's guest began to laugh.

Chiara shivered. "I wish you wouldn't do that. It gives me chills."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. I will have to examine my feelings about it."

"Hmmm, how odd. I didn't think your species was at all analytical."

Chiara frowned, bent over, and pretended to be smelling a rose. "You talk as if you are not of our species."

"I'm not. You, yourself, called me a daemon.""I know," Chiara whispered. "But I thought daemons were only damned souls who worked for the devil."

Again a peal of raucous laughter rang out, at least to Chiara's ears.

"I know nothing of the devil, daemons, and such, though a late priest of mine was fond of driveling on and on about such things. He, too, believed I was a daemon, especially since I allowed him to indulge his taste for cruelty and a perverse de-sire for sexual congress with the dead."

"God!" Chiara whispered. "I wish you would talk of some-thing else."

"I know nothing of God, either," Hugo's guest replied. "And yes, you are right, I came to believe that particular ser-vant of mine was a madman. In the end he wrought his own death because he challenged one who was strong enough to face his attacks, turn them back on him, and kill him.

"But mad or not, I kept faith with him and even with that half-wit Gimp and that pig Hugo. And also, my fine per-snickety lady, I kept faith with you. When you asked for help, I gave it. When you had no other help, I was there."

"Peace, peace. It's true. You did. And I owe you more than I can ever repay, and I thank you. And I do believe you are faithful to your friends. But have you never thought about a higher good?"

"No." The reply was a rather resounding one. "Nor do I believe such a thing exists. No. Not since my people were destroyed and you, of all creatures, were allowed to take their place. No, the universe is simply the result of random forces set in motion by some unknowable cause, and I look to my own survival and the prosperity of those who serve me, and if you're smart, you will do the same."

Then he was gone.

Chiara didn't know how she knew when the creature van-ished, but as she sensed his presence, she also felt his absence and was surprised by the emotional response his angry departure roused in her heart.

She realized she liked him. This slightly horrified her, but his conversation intrigued her and she could say anything she liked to him. For instance, she'd asked him about her mother's illness, and been told, "She bleeds too much when she has her women's courses."

"Is that all?" Chiara had asked.

"Probably. It's a thing I've noticed when women have sev-eral children, and she has borne five.

Sometimes they have an increased flow."

She didn't ask him how he came by this knowledge, be-cause his answers were almost invariably truthful and some-times very disconcerting. She wondered where he had gone.

Hugo's guest was with Hugo, watching his futile attempts to persuade one of the older ladies of the court to yield up her virtue. He felt sheer disgust, at least in part because he knew this particular lady was considered to be a pushover by most of the nobility, but she was something of a connoisseur where male seduction was concerned, and Hugo's absolute lack of technique rather appalled her.

"You are," his guest told Hugo, "a complete fool." Hugo broke off his attack-because that was pretty much what his attempts at seduction amounted to. He'd managed to corner Ilease in a window embrasure, and she was straight-arming him.

Hugo stalked over to a table and poured himself some wine. "I'd like to see you do any better," hemuttered under his breath to his guest.

His guest exerted all his strength, and Hugo found himself a spectator at what followed. Hugo's guest never heard that "liquor is quicker," but he knew it. Liquor and other blandish-ments offered to the lady Ilease persuaded her to accompany him to Hugo's chamber, where he gave Hugo a comprehensive lesson in lovemaking with Ilease as the subject. Hugo had not known that a woman could be pleased and penetrated in so many ways, so many times. It was almost dark when Ilease staggered away from Hugo's door. She was exhausted, sore, scandalized by her own behavior, and black and blue in a few places. None of which could be attributed to Hugo's guest, but to her own rather overenthusiastic acrobatics. She was wearing a silver bracelet and a gold broach and felt pro-foundly satisfied.

After she left, Hugo-who hated to part with anything of value-began to whine about his guest's generosity.

"Shut up. I can find things like that anytime I want. When you need some more, I'll get it for you, but in the meantime, shut up."

Hugo staggered out of bed. He was nude. "What have you done to me?" he whimpered. "I can barely walk."

His guest stopped him at the window.

Hugo moaned. "It's cold, my teeth are chattering..."

"Hold still," his guest commanded. "You're lucky I'm in a good mood."

Hugo's window looked out over the half-ruined Roman city toward the pass at Susa. "Keep complaining," his guest snarled, "and I might toss you out. Want to risk it?"

Hugo was silenced. He wasn't sure if the spirit could accomplish this feat, but he remembered the kicks after the de-bacle at the inn and the physician's exit from the dining room in Florence. He wasn't sure and didn't care to push his luck.

"I'm leaving now," his guest said. Then he kicked Hugo's legs out from under him.

Hugo landed on the floor with a screech and a crash.

"Get the wine. Take the flagon to bed with you and don't- don't-get into any mischief until I return. Is that clear?"

"Y-yesss." Hugo moaned, but his guest noticed he was al-ready crawling toward the flagon on the table.

The wolf woke before the moon rose over the peaks above him. He drifted like a shadow down toward the riverbank in the valley. Brown dairy cows gorged in the open between copses of trees. Predator or not, they ignored him except to raise their heads from time to time and keep track of his progress.

Though the moon wasn't shining into the valley, its light silvered the sky above and he could see almost as well as he could by day. Keeping to the shadows, he crossed the earth-works thrown up near the river, then approached the town. As far as he was concerned, the going was easy, though the rock fall above had left its debris all across what had been clear pasture at one time, and trees had taken root in the rocky rubble. The cover it gave him compensated for any inconvenience.

He was able to make his way to the town and draw very close to its walls without being seen. It was bigger than it looked from high up in the valley. It was walled and the gates were closed. The wolfpaused in the brush along the river. Something about it didn't feel right. Had Regeane been there, she might have warned him. She herself had taken shelter along the Appian Way in a tomb that wasn't there... but then, she hadn't noticed anything wrong at the time, and he could see nothing overtly wrong here.

A pour-off that cut through the remnants of the rock slide ran past the town into the thick half-drowned brush on the riverbank. It seemed to have undermined the walls at the bottom near the water. The wolf eased down into the brush. Yes, there was a crack in the wall just before it joined the first house. Over the water the walls were unnecessary and the houses themselves presented blank walls to the stream. He looked through the crack and saw the cobbles of a square. He began to dig with a view to enlarging the hole.

A half mile away in a cave, Gimp woke to the triumphant shout of Hugo's guest. "He's sprung my trap.

Get down to the river and man the nets."

The digging was easy, Maeniel thought. Almost too easy. I'll be through in a minute, he thought, and plunged headfirst into the river.

The wolf was a strong swimmer but the river, fed by snowmelt from the glaciers at the top of the pass, was freezing. Shock rendered him temporarily helpless. He was dragged along by the swift-moving current into the rapids, white water spreading, swirling over a stony bed.

A creature less tough than he might have been killed. Maeniel was rolled over and dragged along the rocks that floored the riverbed. As it fell toward the valleys beyond, the stream widened abruptly, and for a second the wolf was stranded in a shallow spot. He got his legs under him, then he was dragged down into the current again and sucked into a boiling mael-strom that spit him over a falls and into a millrace at the bottom, and then slammed him into the meshes of a steel net. For a second he was trapped underwater. He struggled franti-cally against drowning, and was pulled to the surface. Aware he was in human shape, he felt the metal cut into his skin as the collar closed around his neck.

In her tent over a hundred miles away, Regeane sat up in her bed, clutching her throat. A dream, she thought. It was a dream, she tried to tell herself. She had just dreamed about the time Gundabald had chained her up, and about the second time when he'd tried to chain her up... but her fears wouldn't quiet themselves.

A few seconds later, the Saxon was looking into the tent. A torch flared in his hands. The light blinded her. The coiling flames cast an eerie glow around her face.

Regeane was hardly immodest; she was wearing a woolen shift and a white lawn overgown trimmed with lace. "He... he... has met with-I don't know-I can't..."

"Are you sure?" the Saxon asked.

"No! Yes, yes... I am."

A second later he was looking at a wolf. The shift and gown were on the floor. He felt her thick ruff as she surged past him. Then she was gone. As wolf she ran through the forest toward the pool. When she reached it, she saw the moon was full and its reflection was mirrored in the still surface.

The silver wolf paused, and the fair, pale light glowed on the long guard hairs on her coat. Once again she felt the odd strength the light brought her, as she had on that long-ago night in Rome after her mother died, when she found herself alone on a dark and dangerous road.Since then she had been a bold adventuress, friend to a pope, and shared the favors of his lover, Lucilla, then wife to the lord Maeniel-the spoiled wife of the lord Maeniel. Did the gray wolf think his protection had changed her essential nature? If he did, the more fool he for believing such a ridicu-lous thing. She was the same Regeane who had adventured across the campagna and into worlds beyond to save Antonius's life. The selfsame woman who had not hesitated to risk the stake and death by fire to help her friends. And the more fool she for letting him shake her hard-won confidence in the abilities conferred by her double state and push her into al-lowing him to journey alone into danger: an act of folly on both their parts.

Had he been captured? Was he dead?

She didn't know. Whatever happened, she must act in the belief that something could be done to save him.

She turned, trotted along the lake's edge, and began to climb up to the Lady's Mirror. Again, as before, the rose and blackberry canes parted at her touch, but she was disappointed when she reached the pool to see the same sky and moon reflected in this water as in the pond lower down. If there was a gate here, it was closed. The woman was fearful. What will I do? How will I reach him? The ever-practical wolf said simply, You are thirsty, might as well have a drink of water.

Her muzzle dropped to the pool. But when her nose touched the water, she found she was looking into a moonless world just at the instant of first light, when the sky is a band of fire opal across the eastern horizon and there is breathless hush, all still, and the outlines of the world's garden are suf-fused by the jewel-like light of the first sunrise.

Regeane didn't hesitate. She dove forward.

The water closed around her soundlessly. An observer would have been disconcerted by the lack of a splash. The pool shimmered for a moment and then the moon's light returned to the water, a disc bright enough to dim even the far-thest stars.

VII.

The silver wolf's head emerged from the water. Daybreak was graying the trees around this lake into visibility. She swam toward the shore. The tree roots reached the water and ran down below the surface and felt like slimy ridges under her paws as she scrambled toward the edge of the lake.

She pulled herself up on the bank and shook the water out of her coat. The world of the trees was foggy and dim. It was silent except for a faraway cry too distant to put a name to. Above her the trunks rose up and up until they vanished into a low fog bank. Not one side branch could she see.

She knew the sun was rising because the light grew brighter and brighter. She'd never seen trees like this.

They left no spot of bare ground between the trunks and roots. They covered the earth the way scale mail formed the cuirass of a warrior, the roots and the trunks spreading out over the ground until they touched the roots of another tree, where they formed knuckles and turned down into the earth.

Things did grow here in the region of perpetual shadow. Soil trapped in the nooks and crannies of the twisting roots supported a magnificent variety of ferns and other odd plants the like of which Regeane had never seen before. Something that rooted itself in bark dropped long trailing stems covered by leaves so tiny and numerous that they looked like fur and were just as soft as fur when she stroked them, except that they were green, cool, and ever so slightly moist. Others were like the ferns she was used to, but many were larger, filling the holes between tree trunks with a dazzling array of green lattice and lacework.But however bewitched they were, none disguised the fact that the trees created an almost impossible surface over which something like a wolf would not be able to travel.

As a human she might be able to find passage between the massive trunks, but she suspected that one wandering among them might do so forever or until starvation and despair claimed him-or her. In the growing light, she saw the lake emerge from a cave or overhang not far from where she surfaced.

Regeane forsook the wolf and turned human. She dove back into the lake and swam toward the cave.

As she ap-proached more closely, she saw it was no cave but a gorge thickly overgrown by the gigantic trees. Their roots from above hung down into the water, forming a vast network as impassable as the bars of a giant cage. The trees drank as the water pulsed between these big, spongy roots and flowed an unguessable distance down a stair of rocks only just faintly visible through the mesh of roots.

No, Regeane thought. She had been placed on a road and it led in only one direction. She was about to turn and swim back into the lake when she saw it. It was all red feathers, ruby scales, and teeth.

It fell on her neck with a screech and sank claws into her shoulder. She was wolf in one jarring, protective reflex and her jaws closed over the thing and ate it. But before she could think, it was gone.

Then the wolf turned and swam toward the outlet from the lake into a river. By the time she reached it, the light was much brighter. Clouds rolled above, moving swiftly as if driven by high winds aloft. The low mist that greeted the morning was gone, but the surrounding trees were so tall the clouds moved among them. Like mountains, they caught the ever-changing maelstrom of vapor. They admitted long shafts of light that tracked hither and yon over the fern forest growing in the em-braces of giant trees.