Free The Wolves of Paris by Michael Wallace Page A

shrine of the Holy Virgin until late into the night. Three hours of sleep and now he was up.
    But now you’re done. They have no more claim on you.
    Yes, for now. Until he returned to Florence and the inquisitor determined that he was still carrying heresy, still placing more faith in the ancient pagan philosophers than in the Gospels. As taught and interpreted by the church, of course.
    Then learn to keep your mouth shut, you fool. Give the correct answer before they beat it out of you.
    Lorenzo dressed himself and threw open the door to his monastery cell. It was still nearly dark and he stumbled into what proved to be nearly a foot of fresh snow. More snow fell from the sky, coating his hair and eyelashes.
    He wanted to bury his feet in the snow, let the cold numb his flesh until it eased the throbbing pain. But after so many weeks on the road, in cold boots and with numb feet at night, he was already at risk for chilblains. He needed to keep his feet dry and covered.
    Working in the dim light of pre-dawn, lay brothers swept out the snow that had blown beneath the arcades, while the other friars filed toward the chapel for matins.
    Two men came around the arcade from the other direction, and when they drew close enough to identify, Lorenzo was disappointed to see his brother with the prior.
    “There you are,” Marco said. “Hurry and dress. The horses are ready.”
    “Where are we going?”
    “Nobody told you?” his brother said with a frown. “They’re holding Giuseppe in Lord Nemours’s chatelet.”
    “Yes, but . . . you’re coming too?”
    “Why wouldn’t I? And Fournier, too. It has been some time since I’ve seen Giuseppe, and the man’s servant may be needed to identify him.”
    “His identity is already certain,” Montguillon said.
    “Yes, of course, Father,” Marco said, “but you are unknown in Florence. Our word will carry more weight when we return to Italy and report.”
    “Yes, I see,” the prior answered, deftly put off by Marco’s explanation.
    Lorenzo wished he had that ability. “Are the roads passable?”
    “We have a sleigh and four strong horses,” Montguillon said. “We can pass through this snow with little difficulty.”
    “But what if it keeps snowing?” Lorenzo asked.
    “We are on God’s errand. We’ll get through.”
    ✛
    The hardest part was getting out of Paris itself. Snow didn’t stop the morning crush of people and animals, the emptying of chamber pots filled with steaming urine and night soil into the streets, the refuse of butchers and tanners that didn’t make it to the river. The filth left the roads fouled, slick with packed snow and icy. And when they finally passed through the city gates on the Rue de Saint-Denis, no sooner had they gained the open road when the sleigh struck an abandoned handcart hidden beneath the snow.
    The sleigh lurched and nearly toppled. When it came down, one of the runners had fractured. By the time Fournier and the driver—the young friar Simon again—had returned from the city with a wheelwright, the horses were cold and two fresh inches had fallen.
    The passengers stood in the open air, watching the wheelwright at work, stomping and hugging themselves to fight off the chill. Simon and Fournier rubbed the horses with blankets to keep them warm.
    “God’s blood!” the wheelwright cursed when his hammer slipped and fell into the snow. He was a squat, pig-faced man with massive forearms. One ear was docked where it slipped out from his cap, perhaps an old injury or maybe a punishment for a crime committed as a boy.
    Montguillon glowered as the man released a stream of oaths, most of them dealing with anatomy of some kind: God’s teeth, Satan’s warty prick, Peter’s hairy ass, and so on. That the prior held his tongue in the face of this ongoing blasphemy was a wonder.
    At last the man finished his work, then demanded an exorbitant sum for the emergency repairs. The wheelwright stood in front of the prior with his