C26 TWENTY SIX

Virtue Cannot

ROSE

You should not have believ'd me, for virtue cannot so

inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I lov'd you not.

— William Shakespeare, Hamlet

ALARIC PULLED OUT a scroll and unrolled it, showing the white wolf. The wolf nodded with approval and Alaric stuck it back in one of the folds of his robes.

The white wolf stood taller, head held high