THE SILVER WOLF

ories, thieves’ markets, and much more. Adding an extra fillip to her tale, Borchardt’s teenage female werewolf, Regeane, has an animal nature perpetually simmering at the surface of her character (like many an adolescent) while she goes about her daily life in human form. Young Regeane is the daughter of a warrior werewolf who was killed by a crossbolt when he was a man. Adopted by her uncle Gundabald, the girl is kept in a tower under strict lock and key, since each and every night she is transformed into a silver wolf. Gundabald wants to marry her off to royalty, for Regeane can claim royal blood on her mother Gisela’s side. But, actually, Gundabald and his sister Gisela had themselves murdered Regeane’s father. Regeane does, at the command of Charlemagne, become engaged to wealthy barbarian lord Maeniel, but before she marries she escapes from the clutches of her uncle. A series of adventures leads her through episodes involving lepers, a young slave girl, the Pope Hadrian, and the courtesan Lucilla. Lucilla, who has eyes for the virgin, also has some secrets of her own: She, too, is a werewolf—and the mother of Maeniel. Borchardt reaches descriptive and dramatic peaks with Regeane’s vulpine supersenses as she noses about Rome by night, reading the dead city’s skin and air. Top-flight fantasy.