Laughing Wolf
Laughing Wolf
Nicholas Maes
Copyright © Nicholas Maes, 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Michael Carroll
Copy Editor: Shannon Whibbs
Design: Jennifer Scott
Printer: Webcom
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Maes, Nicholas, 1960-
Laughing wolf / by Nicholas Maes.
ISBN 978-1-55488-385-1
I. Title.
PS8626.A37 L38 2009 jC813’.6 C2009-900505-0
1 2 3 4 5 13 12 11 10 09
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed and bound in Canada.
| Dundurn Press 3 Church Street, Suite 500 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5E 1M2 | Gazelle Book Services Limited White Cross Mills High Town, Lancaster, England LA1 4XS | Dundurn Press 2250 Military Road Tonawanda, NY U.S.A. 14150 |
To Gershom, Yehuda, and Miriam
Yeladim ze simcha
Contents
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Marcus Licinius Crassus was standing in the street, surrounded by two hundred slaves who were holding buckets and awaiting his signal. Before him was an insula, a badly built apartment block of brick and timber, overcrowded, unhygienic, and easy to catch fire. That explained why its middle stories were ablaze and threatening to spread the flames everywhere.
Next to Crassus was the building’s owner. As tenants on the upper floors pleaded to be rescued, and a crowd gathered to watch the drama, and pedestrians cursed because the street was blocked, he turned to Crassus and tugged at the great man’s toga. “I’ll sell it for a million denarii and not a sestertius less.”
“Ten thousand denarii.”
“Ten? Are you mad? Five minutes ago you offered me fifty thousand …”
“And five minutes from now I’ll offer you a mere three thousand.”
“This is robbery, Marcus Licinius! I’ll not have anyone forcing my hand …!”
“Then I’ll leave with my slaves and you can watch your building burn.”
“This is preposterous…!”
“Eight thousand denarii.”
“Eight! But you just offered me ten! What effrontery!
No, wait! Eight it is! Douse the fire and she’s yours for eight ….!”
At the blast of a whistle Felix started from his reverie. He steadied the book that was slipping off his lap — a leather-bound edition of Plutarch’s Life of Crassus — and sat up in his g-pod. Why had the whistle sounded? And was it his imagination or were they hovering in mid-air? He glanced at an info board and saw that, sure enough, their velocity stood at zero MPH.
He glanced at his reflection in a Teledata screen. A serious-looking face stared back, its eyes blue-green and brimming with confusion, the nose long and bony (exactly like his father’s), the hair straw-coloured, and the chin sharp and dimpled. With a grunt of impatience he engaged the screen and murmured, “External monitor.”
Almost instantly he was looking at a view outside the shuttle. Below him was the coast of Greenland — it was covered in piping and switching stations but was otherwise uninhabitable. On impulse he said, “Pan three hundred and sixty degrees,” and the scene changed abruptly, revealing pale blue sky, cumulus clouds and … Wait. Over there, at NNW 315 degrees, a Medevac was flying toward them, its blue flashers signaling a Code A health priority. What …?
“Honoured passengers,” a voice announced, “InterCity Services regrets to inform you that Shuttle 947, from Rome to Toronto, is experiencing a medical crisis on board. A Medevac will be docking in fifty seconds and will convey the affected passenger to the nearest Health Facility. Service is expected to resume momentarily. All g-force pods have been hermetically sealed and will disengage on the completion of our disinfectant protocols. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.”
Felix was bewildered. How could a Health Priority develop