"Now, they were all young men, none old enough to know my Stella when she was wrongly imprisoned in that house of ill repute in Ravenna. But I remember you being there. And I know someone must have told them stories about my Stella, and I think the someone was you. I can remember the fear in her eyes before I rescued her from that dreadful place. My poor, fragile little Stella. And I remember even more fear when she looked at you, and I see the same fear in your eyes right now. I smell the stench of it on your body, and do you know what? That fear is well justified because I'm going to kill you."

Ansgar turned to the men of the scarae. "Take him out and hang him. Use a slip knot and let him kick awhile."

The soldiers had to drag Syagrius away screaming. He broke down at the end.

Regeane ran from the hall. Lucilla pursued her.

They paused because Syagrius was hanging from a second-floor balcony and he was as Ansgar said-kicking. Regeane staggered down into the street. She almost fell because she was staring up at the dangling man, his face turning black, clawing at his neck. Lucilla caught up to her, snatched her arm. Near the palace she saw another house, smoke streaming from every door and window. She ran toward it.

The doors were down, lying in the street.

The Saxon caught Regeane's shoulders and turned her around. "Don't go in there," he said.

Regeane glanced from him to Lucilla. Lucilla met her eyes with the coldest look Regeane had ever seen.

"The queen," Regeane gasped. "Her sons! You knew. You knew what Charles would do."

"Yes, and I knew you'd try to stop him and he would kill you along with them. He didn't dare let them live, those little boys. They have as much right to the throne as he has. If they aren't dead already, they must die. Hold her! Don't let her get away."

Regeane gave a frenzied cry. She twisted in the Saxon's grip. He was a powerful man. He spun Regeane around and twisted her arm up behind her back.

"If she tries to stop him, he will kill her and maybe the rest of us, too."

The Saxon threw one arm around Regeane's neck to pin her more tightly. She was incredibly strong. He had never met a woman as powerful as she was.

"Break her arm if you have to," Lucilla commanded. "It's better than her being killed by Charles and his men. Hold-"

The Saxon didn't hear the rest because he slipped and went down on one knee. Regeane had vanished.

"Wait-" he heard Lucilla shout.He was back on his feet in a second.

"She has some strange powers," Lucilla said. "Find Maeniel."

The world wavered oddly and time became still. Regeane looked at Lucilla and saw her doppelganger next to Lucilla, being held by the Saxon. The smoke was gone and the morning silence enfolded them.

She saw the king, his men, ahead of her knocking down the doors. She glided like a wraith behind him and saw him come face-to-face with Gerberga, his brother's wife, the sometime Frankish queen.

No, Regeane thought. No.

But then it didn't matter. She had stepped out of time. What had happened was already over. All she could do was watch the play come to its appointed end. Regeane saw Gerberga run from her own rooms into the central hall. The light was bright now, the dining hall was open to a courtyard garden that looked at the horizon filled with the warm golden light of a hazy spring sunrise.

"Charles," she said, and hurried to place herself between him and the wing where her sons were sleeping.

"Charles. Please! Please! Don't harm my children."

"Whatever makes you think I would?" he asked quietly.

Regeane saw he was moving to his left and that Gerberga was turning slowly, her back to her sons'

bedroom now. She saw Charles was holding Gerberga's attention.

"Charles, please, please. In the name of Christ, don't harm them. I'll do anything you wish." She sank to her knees. "I'll go to Byzantium. I'll be your prisoner. I'll go to a convent, let myself be shut away, but please-"

And Regeane knew with dreadful certainty what was going to happen.

Charles smiled and stretched out his hand to his sister-in-law, as if to raise her to her feet.

Bernard stepped out of the boys' bedroom. He carried the small war ax, the Franka, that gave the Franks their name. This was a beauty, chased and filigreed in silver to cut down on weight, but the blade was edged in steel.

It was bloody.

At the very last second, the queen saw Charles's gaze as he met Bernard's eyes over her head. And Regeane saw, for an instant, a terrible comprehension in her face. Then Bernard swung the ax and Regeane remembered that the Franka was still the chosen instrument of execution.

The blade severed Gerberga's spinal cord and she fell forward, dead at the king's feet. Regeane saw him back away from the spreading pool of blood. She glided past Bernard and looked through the door. The two boys were in the bed together. One was so tranquil he seemed almost asleep. But for the yellowish, waxy pallor of his skin, he might indeed have been sleeping. But the other's, the older one's, head was half severed from his neck. Blood was still running down the sheets and forming a small, scarlet pool on the floor. His eyes were open and a rictus of wholly appropriate fear was frozen on his childish features.

Again Regeane watched the scene play itself out, and then again. And she knew she could remain here forever seeing this horror over and over again, if she chose, for all eternity. But no matter how long she watched, caught like an insect in amber in an eternal instant of unspeakable horror, she would never be able to change even one scintilla of the events unfolding before her.But someone was screaming her name. She wanted it to stop. It was so irritating. And then she was down, struggling in someone's arms, and he was dragging her across a room fogged black with smoke.

The only light came from the bloody glow of the rafters burning above them. She fought him even while he dragged her through the broken doors into the street, clawing, kicking, and screaming, until she looked up and saw the face, one eye swollen from her fist, skin gashed by her nails, and knew him. Her love, Maeniel.

"I was part of that. I helped," she screamed. "If it hadn't been for me, she-those children-might still be-"

The square around them was chaos. Houses were burning, people running back and forth trying to find loved ones or dumping possessions from the windows, soldiers guzzling drink or gorging on food. But there was no longer any fighting.

"If you love me," she whispered to Maeniel, "take me somewhere clean."

He embraced her and brushed her hair with his lips. The air was full of smoke and no one seemed to notice or even see the two wolves cross the square or run flying down toward the gate. None except Charles, the king. He followed, his horse at a canter. They were only shadows against the wheat sprouting green in the furrows, the olive trees like smoke against the vineyards, and the pastures glowing with long, wind-tossed green grass. Then they were gone.

He shivered, thinking, The guilt is Bernard's. The blood guilt. They were not his kin. He is my mother's brother. I am free of it. I am free of it.

But still he sat for a long time, hands folded on the pommel of his saddle, watching the high cloud shadows move over the fair, rich, green countryside he could now claim as his own.

ALICE BORCHARDT shared a childhood of storytelling with her sister, Anne Rice, in New Orleans. A professional nurse, she has also nurtured a profound interest in little-known periods of history. She is the author of Devoted, Beguiled, The Silver Wolf, and Night of the Wolf She lives in Houston.