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permanently mad or dropped dead after a heavy drinking bout. Regeane didn’t wish to join their number.
    Silve got a bit glassy-eyed as the wine hit her. She discussed Hugo’s ancestry, then laughed. “He’ll have to peddle his ass in the back room to get a drink,” she said. “I have the money. Oh, look!”
    Regeane looked. Silve was pointing to the atrium pool. Regeane’s eyes picked up movement in the water. “It’s a carp,” Silve said. She began pulling off her veil. “Let’s see if we can net it. I’ll hold the veil. You chase the fish into it. He’ll make a wonderful supper.” She started to rise, but Regeane caught her arm and pulled her back.
    “I’m not sure that’s a fish,” Regeane said.
    The thing in the pool lifted its head above the water. A snake.
    Silve made a sound reminiscent, to Regeane, of an ungreased axle being overstressed. Then bolted. She ran in the wrong direction toward the altar where there was no exit. She leaned against one of the columns and applied the jug for a bit more restorative.
    The serpent moved out of the pool easily to the straw-covered floor and glided toward Regeane. The woman was afraid, but the wolf was indifferent, queenly even. She knew the snake wasn’t poisonous or even angry, only curious.
    Put to it, Regeane scorned to show fear in front of Silve. She was, after all, the daughter of Wolfstan the Saxon prince, called by his people a talisman, and Gisela, blood kin to Charles Martel, the hammer of God. She would not be shamed by the creature before her.
    The thing did not move very quickly, thus it allowed her to prepare for its arrival. She noticed on closer examination the snake wasn’t ugly. The scales were a tightly fitted mosaic similar to the colors of water sparkling in the sunlight—white, blue, and green. They formed a pattern down his back overlying darker bands at each side.
    The wolf eyed him with a bow of appreciation for such good camouflage. He must be nearly invisible when swimming in the muddy sun-struck Tiber.
    The snake reached Regeane’s shirt and investigated the hem with a brief flicker of his forked tongue. The wolf was aloof, yet the woman stretched out her hand as to a courtier.
    The serpent’s head rose. She felt the flickering, timid caress of the tongue on her fingertips. He, or perhaps she, made an amazing U-turn and hurried back toward the water.
    “Aha! Ahaa! Ahaaaaa!” Silve commented. “It paid you homage.”
    “Like hell,” Regeane said. “It decided I was too big to eat. Now, shut up. If there’s any attendant or a priest about, you’ll have him bolting in her to find out what’s wrong.”
    Silve shut up probably because she couldn’t scream while finishing off the contents of the clay flask.
    Regeane rose and walked toward the pool. She watched as the serpent—with the air of one who knows where he is going—swam down toward the drainage pipe that probably emptied into the river. As he entered, she saw the woman.
    There was a small marble bench near the pool. She was sitting there, staring contentedly into the still water. A child sat on her lap—a little boy. He was sleeping, small, curly head resting on his mother’s breast.
    For a second, Regeane wondered when she had come in. Then realized the woman could not have entered without her noticing, and that she could see the far wall of the church through their bodies. She understood what she was looking at. The wolf yawned, bored.
    Regeane felt a bit envious: the expression on the spirit’s face was serene and filled with love and peace.
    Above the opening in the roof, the sky brightened. Regeane looked up. When she turned her eyes back to the bench, the woman was gone.
Yes
, Regeane thought.
This place has always been holy
.
    Silve wailed. She sounded like an unhappy hound dog.
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Regeane shouted. “What is it now? The snake is gone.”
    “You were looking at someone on the bench. There couldn’t have been anyone on the