"Oh, yes, you will," Robert roared. "You will hear this one."

Robert stood among the crowd of men within the larger throng. These were the ones Regeane had noticed earlier who drank no spirits and were somewhat more heavily clothed and didn't seem to feel the heat as much as others.

The bishop's eyes scanned them. He was still seated. "My lord," he said to Desiderius. "My lord, I think the matter is ur-gent and you should hear this one."

Something like the snarl of a giant animal rose from the mob.

The king paused.

His courtiers, even the mercenaries of his guard, looked frightened.

Robert's eyes were red from the long vigil in the church, and his face was ravaged by grief. To Regeane, he looked twenty years older than the boy Regeane had seen descending the stairs at his mother's house, alarm in his face. In time, Regeane knew, he would come to terms with his grief, but he would never be so young again.

There was a commotion at the edges of the square, and she saw some of Robert's friends escorting the five soldiers through the throng. The men had been disarmed, but other-wise, they seemed unharmed.

The three older mercenaries were clearly frightened, but they had seen far too much vio-lence to be completely intimidated by what they likely consid-ered a few peasants. The two younger ones, not as hardened as the three older soldiers, looked terrified. The bodies of the ford keeper and his family, shrouded as they had been last night, were carried along behind them. She saw that one of the men accompanying the prisoners was Beningus, the law speaker.

A cloud covered the sun and a gentle breeze ruffled every-one's clothing. The smell of rain was strong on the wind. Down the alleyways between the warehouses, Regeane saw the sky darkening like a bruise all along the horizon. A storm, a big one, was coming from the mountains in the north.

The five corpses were rested, each on their biers, before the king.

"These are?" Desiderius asked arrogantly.

Robert spoke their names beginning with the two men and then the boy and ending with the two women.

"None died a natural death," he said. "Their wounds attest they were killed by steel."

Then the shrouds were removed and the wounds on each body revealed. Each body had a waxen yellow-white pallor, and the air was filled with the odor of spilled blood.

"I will agree," Desiderius said, his face tight with disgust, "they are, indeed, dead and they died as you have said. But what has this to do with me? Or-" He pointed toward the knot at one side near the throne. "-with the guardians of my person and my peace?"

"They are the killers," Robert said bluntly, and pointed to them.

"And have you some proof of this monstrous accusation?"

"Yes. The tavern keeper saw them leave early yesterday morning and return later with injuries. And whenwe searched their possessions, we found a ring belonging to my affianced wife; a pendant belonging to her mother, Itta; and two knives we recognized as belonging to the men of the house-hold. Moreover,"

he said, and pointed to the oldest of the mercenaries, "the tavern keeper states this man's face was un-marked when he set out-as he said-to hunt, and the young-ster had no wound on his arm. But when they returned, they were injured as you see."

"So," Desiderius said angrily. "I am to condemn faith-ful men of mine on the word of a drunken tavern keeper and the half-grown son of a widow who runs a house of ill repute?"

This last was a gratuitous insult. Everyone within earshot knew it. Dorcas was a model of propriety.

Robert went white with fury, but Beningus placed a hand on his shoulder and said, "Johns is a temperate and well-conducted merchant, and Dorcas sells bread for a living. Bread, I might add, that is eaten at your table. You may deny the accusation, my lord, but there is no need to insult those who bring it before you."

The crowd was silent.

Regeane noticed the wind was picking up.

"Very well," the king answered with ill grace. Then he pointed to the most hardened of the mercenaries, the man with scratches on his face. "Tell us," Desiderius ordered. "What happened?"

The man gave Robert a taunting, insolent look. "We went out, as it was said, to hunt, and those people attacked us at the ford. An ambush. They were not alone. Others were with them. We put up a fierce resistance to the cowardly assault by thieves, and the men were killed, the rest fled. As to the women-"

He sniggered and elbowed the man nearest him. "-you can't blame us that we ran them down and collected some soldier's pay. They were not virgins and neither was really unwilling."

"Then why, I wonder," Beningus asked, "was it necessary to kill them?"

The large man looked uncomfortable. "We didn't do that. Must have been their menfolk when they came back and saw the ladies had been too accommodating." He gave a shaky laugh but no one, not even his comrades, joined him.

Desiderius snapped his fingers and pointed at the soldiers. "Release them forthwith."

Regeane felt nauseated. She could smell the scratched mercenary in a way no human possibly could. She knew what he'd done and knew Itta had inflicted the scratches, ugly ones, with her nails before she died.

No one moved.

The silence was thick now. Above, the sun was beginning to darken and the wind was blowing hard. The square was sheltered but occasional hard gusts lifted the dust into a cloud and whirlwinds danced like yellow wraiths over the humped cobbles. The men's mantles were fluttering, and women took a firmer grip on cloaks and veils.

Regeane saw, as did everyone else, that they were at an im-passe. The armed mercenaries surrounding the king weren't about to jump down into the crowd and risk God knows what, and the men who'd captured the malefactors had no present or future intention of letting them go free.

Beningus tried to break the stalemate. "My lord," he said, addressing the king. "Perhaps before you act in such a hasty fashion, you should listen to Johns, the tavern keeper, and the men who accompanied Robert to retrieve the bodies. They will tell you that this family was caught unaware and unpre-pared.That there was no sign of any attack at the ford. More-over the young girl, Mona, should be examined by the midwife to see if she was virgin before she was interfered with. You see, my lord, most possibly all the people here knew this family well, and they had a good name. None here con-sider them capable of an act of brigandage as is claimed by these soldiers."

Desiderius's face was flushed and his hands were shaking. He was, everyone knew, at the edge of an abyss. Robert was standing near Maeniel, who leaned over and spoke softly into his ear. No one but Regeane heard what he said.

"No, don't run mad. There are too many of them to keep a guilty secret. Put some pressure on one of the young ones. He will break."

Yes, Regeane thought.

The two youngest ones stood a little apart from the older three. One had his head bowed, seemingly drawn inside him-self. He stared fearfully at nothing, eyes wide with shock. Robert picked him. He strode over to the soldiers and pulled him away from the rest. Holding the boy's shirt twisted tight in his fist, he roared, "All right, you tell me the girl I loved wasn't a virgin. You tell me she was a slut. Look me in the eye and tell me-tell me she wanted what was done to her."

The boy tried to turn aside.

"No, you stinking liar. Look. Look me in the eye and say it-"

"No." The boy broke as Maeniel said he would. "No, she didn't want us. She screamed and screamed.

Oh, God, I can still hear her screaming in my head, even after I-" He paused, a look of horror frozen on his features.

"Even after you cut her throat?" Robert added in an unbe-lievably level tone.

"Yes," the boy answered in a strangled voice. "Yes, even then I could still hear her... screaming."

Robert stepped back and let go of the boy's shirt, wiping his hand on his tunic as if it were contaminated by something foul-as Regeane thought it had been. The boy sank to his knees on the stones, sobbing, moaning that he was damned.

Robert turned to Desiderius and pointed a finger at him. "You are no king. A king who will not administer his own laws and does not defend his people's lives is no king."

In the distance, lightning was flashing and thunder sounded a distant rumble.

Desiderius, in his turn, pointed at Robert. "Take that inso-lent little gutter rat out and hang him," he shouted at the sol-diers gathered beneath the portico. "Do it and do it now."

Robert stood glaring at him defiantly.

The soldiers were afraid to move. The mob was a gigantic animal no one wanted to attack. Yes, there were about forty of them, well armed, in a position of command standing above the rabble on the porch, yet exclusive of women and children, there were at least several hundred able-bodied men among the citi-zens, and yes, these were men with families. So if the king and his mercenaries took a firm stand, they might run... But if they didn't, if they chose to fight back, the results could well prove disastrous for king, courtiers, and soldiers alike.

The bishop, old as he was, tried to save the situation. "My lord king," he spoke loudly into the tensesilence. "My lord king, the boy's confession belies the first tale told. It is left to you to find the truth, and if these scoundrels deserve hanging, why, hang them.

"And you, young man," he spoke to Robert, "your sorrow and anger are understandable, but do not provoke your sover-eign lord further. You have proven the truth is not in these-" He gestured toward the mercenaries. "-these hirelings. Be content, I beg you."

The boy ran toward the bishop and threw himself on his knees in front of the prelate. The bishop lifted his hand in ab-solution and made the sign of the cross.

"Am I damned?" the boy asked.

"No," the bishop replied. "I have, as well as any man can, implored forgiveness for your sins, but you must make confession."

The youngster pointed at Robert. "He speaks the truth. I and my friends are guilty of murder. No one attacked us. We saw the women, desired them, and planned to catch them alone by the stream and have our pleasure of them by force, but the women fought. The young one got away to her men-folk, so..."

"So," the bishop continued. "I know, there was no help for it. You must kill them all."

The bishop gave Desiderius a bleak look. "You are the king. Do justice." He looked up at the exposed braces of the colonnade, beams high up helping to hold the colonnade away from the building. He pointed. "They will do for a gallows."

A spatter of rain struck the square. Regeane felt a few drops brush her face. All around her Regeane heard people sigh. At the edges of the crowd the less interested members of the assembly, seeing the imminent arrival of the storm, began hurrying away to their homes. Regeane grabbed Maeniel's arm and moved him toward the bishop. She was hoping somehow to put both of them under his protection.

Desiderius was a treacherous man. Maeniel was fettered still. Somehow, she had to get that collar from around his neck.

She saw the anger in the king's face and the fear in Hugo's when she pulled Maeniel toward the bishop.

Rain was reach-ing the square as a wind-driven mist and under it the crowd was melting away.

Regeane's clothing was drenched before she quite realized how it happened. Hugo bent over and spoke to the king in a low voice. Desiderius lifted his hand.

No, she thought. No.

Remingus the ghost, the terror, the mummified corpse, was beside her. His eye holes stared at Hugo.

The captain of the guard had a spear. Hugo snatched it and let it fly at Regeane. The spear took her in the body, low above her left hip. The pain of death ripped through her, and she fell back into the street.

The change tried to take her the way a hawk takes a rabbit with a sudden pounce. She fended it off.

She was still frightened of what the mob might do if she went wolf in the open day.

"Call the wolf," Maeniel roared. "Call the wolf, Regeane. Only the wolf can save you."

The full force of the storm hit then. Rain slashed at the crowd. The women fled toward the church, but the men didn't run. The world was fading. Maeniel went wolf as the light-ning hit. The fetters fell away.

The chain, Regeane thought, still struggling in the street, the chain.The collar was still around his neck and attached to the chain, but the end of the chain was no longer under the con-trol of Desiderius's captain. A second later Maeniel was a man again, and the chain was a weapon.

The first of the mercenaries to try to take him died horribly. The chain swung around the man's neck. His face turned scarlet, then blue. Maeniel jerked; the links snapped into a tighter spiral and ripped the man's head off. The mercenaries on the porch fired into the mob. Led by Maeniel, Robert and his friends charged the porch.

Regeane felt her senses drenched by night as the wolf gained full control, and the silver wolf crouched on the cobbles. The nobles and functionaries of the Lombard court jammed the doorway into the palace in hysterical flight. Heedless of anyone's safety but the king's, the captain of the guard pulled his men in, made them into a wide wedge, and driving over and through the bodies of the terrified courtiers, he took the king into the palace. The silver wolf saw Hugo among the last few stragglers, clawing at the captain's back. He turned and, fixing Hugo with a malevolent glare, threw him at Maeniel who was leading the charge.

Maeniel simply elbowed him aside in his attempt to reach the king, but again, the captain of the guard prevailed. His mace slammed into Maeniel's shoulder and drove him to his knees. He was unable to really hurt the wolf but their strug-gling bodies blocked the entrance and gave the rest of the guard, now in mortal terror of the mob, time to swing the big doors outward.

"Back away," he told Maeniel. "We will slaughter those in the passage. Back away."

Maeniel and Robert both knew it was true. The narrow passage led directly into the palace courtyard and was con-structed so as to be easily held by a few men. The door slammed shut and the sound was lost in the almost constant drum roll of thunder from above.

The bishop remained seated in his chair. The few strag-glers who hadn't been able to escape with the king were crouched around him. These included Chiara, Armine-who embraced her protectively-a few elderly men, women, and Hugo, who had managed to elbow the weaker people aside and capture the position closest to the bishop.

Regeane saw that there was no sanity left in the faces of the mob.

Maeniel stepped deliberately between the bishop and the furious men, and coiled the chain around his arm. He said, "No. They are helpless and innocent. Robert, where are the killers?"

The bishop then demonstrated his acuity. "They fled," he said. "They could not get into the palace and the rest would not defend them." He pointed to the street leading to the cathedral, the only really good entrance to the square.

"No," Robert shouted. Sheets and sheets of blowing rain were flung across the square. "We'll never catch them in this."

"Speak for yourself," Maeniel shouted back. "And if I am too slow, my wife can."

Regeane spun around and charged across the square. Robert and the others followed into the rain.

Lightning struck close to the porch, the bolt driving into one of the ware-houses. Flames blossomed, filling the air with the harsh scent of burning hair and feathers, only to be extinguished by the driving rain.

Regeane, hard on the heels of the criminal band, faltered for a second, then ran on. The wind was in her face telling her they were ahead and frantic with fear.Maeniel spared a moment for the bishop. "Get them into the church."

The bishop was already on his feet and gathering his little flock around him when Maeniel went wolf. The wolf glared for a moment at Hugo with savage yellow eyes. Hugo scrambled behind the bishop, pushing Armine and Chiara aside. Armine pushed back. The heel of his hand caught Hugo in the chest, sending him spinning into the rain.

The bishop glanced back at Maeniel. The wolf's lower jaw dropped, his tongue lolled, and for a moment the bishop would have sworn the animal was laughing. Then the wolf leaped from the porch and followed the rest, the chain snap-ping and dancing behind him, striking the cobbles as he ran and sending sparks flying.

Fire in the rain.

X.

The Saxon heard nothing, saw nothing, but one moment she wasn't there and the next moment she was.

He was stirring his low fire with a stick, wondering if he should bother to add more fuel, since he was about to roll himself up in the bearskin and sleep, when he felt eyes on him, looked up, and saw the black wolf. She was sitting on her haunches and staring at him from across the fire.

"Matrona?"

A second later she was a woman, the firelight's shifting patterns illuminating her voluptuous flesh. He averted his eyes and pulled off his mantle.

Matrona laughed. "You worry so about a little skin, you humans. Why not take a good look? What? Am I repulsive?"

"No!" he answered shortly. "Quite the reverse, but I would not be shamed or have my manhood show itself to no purpose."

Matrona gave a husky laugh. "How do you know it would be to no purpose?"