"No," Robert said, but looked as if he'd taken a blow.

Maeniel drew his dagger, rose, and cut the ropes that bound both men. Then he removed the nooses from around their necks.

"Go." He pointed at the tent entrance. "Return to Pavia and see if I am lying. All I ask is that you refrain from taking any action against the Frankish king until you do so. Robert, where is your mother?"Robert paled. "She fled the city, at least that's what she told me. That she would flee to Turin and stay with friends. Why?"

"There were five on the gallows. One was the bishop, the second was the law speaker Beningus, the other two I didn't know, but the fifth was a woman."

"Beningus is sacred," Robert said. "To harm a law speaker is an abomination. They take no money, so as to be always free to advise the people truthfully."

"Apparently the speaker was not sacred to Desiderius," Maeniel said. Then he looked at Nivardd and saw the man was weeping open-eyed, tears darkening his gray beard.

"He was one of my closest friends," Nivardd said brokenly. "I cannot remember when I didn't know him. If what you say is true, my king is a monster."

"It's true," Maeniel said. "I wish it were not."

"How can you be there so quickly and back?" Nivardd asked.

"You saw what I did in the church. To one of us, the distance is not so far, once we are over the mountains. I went to Pavia again. This time I was not captured. I can pass through the dwelling places of men like smoke or wind. I was worried about your mother. As far as I could tell, your house was empty.

The mice were hungry but could not tell me anything more."

"Mice aren't very smart," Matrona said. "Their powers of observation are limited."

"Or they're not telling all they know," Antonius said.

"We are wracked with grief and you are cracking jokes," Robert said.

"Those aren't jokes. I truly was looking for your mother and I took the trouble to bribe the mice with a small sack of feed. I was able to obtain clothing in the town, and took the opportunity to move about in human form," Maeniel said. "Nivardd was in the church; but you saw us run down the criminals. You both know what we can do. We heard you talking about us yesterday. The sun was not clearer to our eyes than you were to Matrona and myself among the trees."

"Matrona was there?" asked Robert.

"I was wolf," she said.

"Come with me to the king," Maeniel said. "We pay our debts. You were kind and hospitable to my wife, and when it came down to it, tried to help me. I will recommend you to him. I have done him a great service and he will listen.

"If you won't see Charles, we will return your horses and you may go, but the next time you raid the baggage train... The king asked me to put a stop the raids." Maeniel brought the flat of his hand down hard on the table with a loud crack. "And I will."

A few hours later they went to see Charles. He was with Bernard and several entrusted with the procurement of supplies when they entered. He dismissed them all except Bernard when Maeniel and the rest entered."These," Maeniel said, "are the men who have been attacking our supply wagons." He indicated Robert and Nivardd.

Charles nodded. "So, the obvious question is, Why are they not in chains, not hung, and not dead?"

"With your permission, my lord," Maeniel said. "I would like Antonius to address that question."

"Indeed," Charles said. "His majesty is honored. Antonius is always fulsome in his eulogies of my words and deeds. So must the orators, who once addressed the ancient Roman senate, have sounded when they heaped praise on the world conquerors. You make me feel like I am already dead, Antonius."

"Heaven forfend, your majesty," Antonius said. "Say rather that I err in extending my weak art in honor of one whose deeds are of such magnificence that they render all ordinary praise superfluous."

Bernard burst into a roar of laughter. "Nephew, you can't win. He always bests you."

Charles smiled. "What is it this time, Antonius?"

"My lord, I believe you have in all but name conquered the Lombard kingdom. We will arrive at Pavia tomorrow and, while Desiderius will hope to stand a siege, he will offer no other resistance."

Charles nodded.

"Desiderius is clever. He hopes that starvation will hound your troops as well as his city," Antonius continued.

"Yes, that's why we were having the present meeting. We are troubled about the matter of supplies."

"Once," Antonius said, "there was another great man who led an army against Italia. His name was Hannibal of Carthage, a commander of note."

"The career of the great Carthaginian has not escaped my notice," Charles broke in. "Get to the point."

"The point is he won every battle he fought but the last," Antonius said.

"The only one that is absolutely necessary that any commander win," Bernard said.

"Just so," Antonius said. "And do you know why he lost?"

"I'll bite," Charles said. "Why?"

"Because the brilliant Carthaginian was as noted for his cruelty as his military prowess," Antonius said.

"In the end the cities of Italia feared him like death and they turned to the devil they knew, Rome, rather than face the devil they did not know."

Charles nodded.

"My lord Maeniel brings these two brave men to you. Not because they fear you, but because the king in Pavia betrayed them both in an important way."

"I know," Charles said. "He hanged his bishop Ebroin. I thought this action might lessen his popularity.

Ebroin was related to half the Lombard nobility."

"Was my mother killed?" Robert broke in."No," Charles said. "And don't look so surprised, Maeniel. I have independent sources of information in Pavia." He turned to Robert. "Your mother escaped the attentions of Desiderius's executioner. I don't know where she went, but she's not there.

"Nivardd, do you truly wish to enter my service?"

"Yes, but not alone. I would like to bring Robert with me."

Charles turned to his uncle Bernard.

"I can use both of them," Bernard said. "Most of the aristocratic whelps you send me are as ignorant as the average clod of dirt kicked up by a plow. I can use two experienced men who can read and write and are not ignorant of military matters. The great landowners will listen to Nivardd and..." Bernard hesitated. He wasn't a man to put things delicately. Robert was not noble.

"Yes," Nivardd said. "But there are those who will listen to Robert, to whom you and I would be only a pair of lazy nobles trying to feather our own nests."

Bernard gave a grunt of approval.

"Then it's settled," Charles said. "They will both join the scarae."

"Come on," Bernard said as he rose. "We will find you a place to stay and I'll introduce you to the rest of the boys."

"Maeniel, I wish to see you," Charles said.

He waited until the others left and only Antonius and Maeniel were present. Charles opened his writing case and handed a small piece of paper to Maeniel. Maeniel walked to the door of the king's tent and looked at in the light. The paper had been both ruled and creased.

Gerberga, your late brother's wife, is in Verona. Regeane has gone there.

"Is that Hadrian's hand?" Charles asked.

"It is," Antonius answered. "The pigeons."

"Yes," Charles said. "They were bred in Geneva. I took the precaution of having two dozen shipped to the pope. A special courier brought me this only this morning."

"Will you need me for anything else?" Maeniel asked.

"No."

"I'll be leaving for Verona then, before dark," Maeniel said. "Speak to Matrona or, if she isn't present, Antonius."

Maeniel hurried away.

"He didn't ask leave to quit my presence," Charles noted.

"Would it help if I begged your pardon?" Antonius asked.

"No," Charles said. "It wouldn't help at all." on a stone block looking at Armine lying on his facebeside an archway in the tangled green, and the bear in Chiara's arms. He was inhabiting Hugo.

The dead, the ones they had killed, were scattered around them.

"What happened?" Chiara asked. "Where did we go?"

"I think," the bear said, "I just received a lesson in my own inconsequence."

"I don't think so," Regeane said. "No, I don't think so at all. But I'm-give me something to wear."

XII.

Lucilla dreamed and in the dream a faceless woman was offering her a cool cup of fresh water. The taste was the sweetest she'd ever enjoyed. When she woke the rain was pouring from the border of the recessed grating into her mouth. Lucilla stood under the grating, mouth open, arms wide in welcome until she had drunk her fill, then she was able to capture more in the jug that once held the drugged wine and in every other container she could improvise from the shards that she'd uncovered in her days of digging.

At dawn the rain ceased, blown away as the weather front that brought the rain passed. Then, stacking her precious containers of water away from the grating, back where during the day it would be dark, she lay down on her bed of grass and drifted into a natural sleep.

When she woke it was afternoon. She lay quietly, eyes closed for a time, thinking. She had hope now and hope can be as cruel a thing as torture if it goes unfulfilled. She struggled with herself not to be too optimistic, knowing that if the bishop and his minions found out she had survived this long, they would certainly send someone to kill her. At length she sat up and checked her water containers. There were four of them. The wooden cup, a broken bowl, a concave shard that had been part of something much larger, and the clay flask that had held the drugged wine.

In the far edge of the cell, a dip held a fairly large puddle. She crawled over and drank from that first.

Then she tied her hair up with a strip torn from the hem of the woolen gown, picked up her tools, crawled back in the corner, and began to dig.

When it grew too dark to make any further progress, she crawled back, drank from the puddle again, cut another notch in the tally stick, lay down, and drifted off to sleep.

In the morning the puddle was dry, so she drank from the broken bowl and then from the big shard.

Otherwise this day passed the same way, except that it was a little colder. She was able to work longer.

By now the blisters on her hands had broken and were oozing blood. She drank it, unwilling to let any source of liquid or nourishment be wasted.

On the eighth day all the water except that contained in the wine jug was gone. She drank sparingly from that because she was beginning to feel real hope. She was digging through clean soil now, and it was damp, soft, and friable. She encountered roots for the first time. And she was sure she was close to the surface of the hillside.

That night Adalgisus came.

The moon was out and full when she heard him whispering just outside the grating.

"Lucilla! Lucilla, are you alive? The man I bribed said you'd be dead and stinking but I don't smell anything."At first Lucilla thought her mind was playing tricks on her, since she had just awakened from sleep. But then the fourth or fifth time he called her name, she knew he was there, "Lucilla, please, if you're alive, answer me."

He sounded his usual whiny self, and such a wave of sheer fury surged through her that her whole body trembled with an absolute need to kill him where he stood. And then the more cautious part of her mind whispered, Girl, don't be a fool, as this may be your only chance. The rage vanished below consciousness as she searched her mind for directions on how to play this one.

"Yes," she whispered.

"God, yes, you are alive. I knew you wouldn't give up so easily as they said."

Again the rage shattered her calm and fury turned the darkness behind her lids red. "I am, but just barely," she answered. "Get me some food, some water. If it hadn't rained two nights ago, I would be dead."

He pressed something down through the grating. Wine in an earthenware jug, a napkin with a few loaves of bread, some cheese and-blessing of blessings-a hard sausage. She knelt, drinking the wine and tearing the hard loaves with her teeth.

"Lucilla, you have to help me."

For a second Lucilla almost laughed. God, he was a child. Her-help him?

Better find out, her cooler self said. "Why?" she asked between mouthfuls of bread.

"Charles has passed the mountains and has besieged my father in Pavia. It is said that the big landowning families are taking Charles's side and helping supply his army."

Lucilla sighed. Too late for her, perhaps, but what she and Hadrian had hoped for was happening. She'd won. Small consolation. Now, maybe she could use it as a bargaining tool with Adalgisus.

"Get me out of here," she said. "I'll help you make your accommodation with the pope. You might still salvage something."

He was silent.

"If you let them kill me," she whispered savagely, "you're doomed. If you help me, I'll speak for you.

Hadrian will listen to me, and Charles will listen to Hadrian. I promise you. But for the love of God, Adalgisus, please-" She was shocked at the desperation in her own voice. "-please get me out of here."

For a moment she thought he might be gone, but then when he answered she was equally horrified by the relief she felt: it seemed to shake her whole body.

"I can't," he whined. "The man I bribed to tell me where you were wouldn't give me the keys."