Maze of Moonlight (27 page)

“I do.”

He forced a nervous laugh. “I don't see you going about terrifying everyone—except maybe for me. There's hope for Vanessa, then?”

“There is always hope.”

“What about . . .” He glanced down, wished that he had not. “What about for us?”

Natil shrugged. “Anything can happen. There are but differing degrees of probability.”

“You could be burned for saying things like that, you know.”

Natil looked away. “We have.”

Christopher regretted his words. Natil's past and her people were her own business. She was helping him. That was enough. “I'm sorry.”

“Be at peace.” Natil rose, took the coil of rope from Christopher, and went clambering up the wall. IN a few minutes, the end of the rope came whispering down, and Christopher knotted it about himself and, thus supported, fumbled his way up.

When he at last crawled over the edge of the roof, he collapsed, gasping. “How much farther?”

“Across, then down to a subsidiary wall, across to another, then we double back and climb again.” Christopher shut his eyes and groaned softly. “The only staircase is guarded,” Natil explained, “and the guards are awake.”

Christopher rubbed his face. “Yes . . . of course . . . that's what you said before, wasn't it?” It was going to be a hard night, but it was precisely the presumed impregnability of the fortress that would give strength to Christopher's arguments.

Nothing was safe. Not Hypprux. Not Maris. Not even Aurverelle. And . . .

With a pang, he looked southward as though he could see a city there: a wealthy city with tiled roofs and a conceited fool for a mayor.

. . . certainly not Saint Blaise.

At times, it occurred to him that, somehow, he might have eventually made Vanessa happy. It was not pity that moved him now, nor was it the yearning of a starving ghost for the blood of mortality: it was to her humanity that he had at last responded.

He smiled softly.
Yes, Vanessa, I think I've come far enough to love you.

He looked up into Natil's eyes. “I'm ready,” he said.

“Then let us go.”

Chimneys, flèches, eaves . . . Christopher and Natil ducked and wove among them. Natil's footfalls were silent, and her eyes peered, Christopher assumed, into the patterns of action and inaction that made up the fortress. Padding as quietly as he could, seeing but what was before him, he followed her.

She brought him to the edge of the roof, and he looked down on a stony sea of walls and towers. The bright moonlight turned all into a maze of light and profound darkness, but the darkness, he knew well, was not impenetrable: it was, rather, merely obscure. Profundity or impenetrability stemmed solely from his point of view. And in much the same way, his own guilt and despair had stemmed from his ignorance and limited perceptions. They also were a maze built solely of moonlight.

He was beginning to understand that. He was not his grandfather. He had his own choices. He could be free. He wanted to be free.

Natil stood at his side, watching him. “Are you ready?”

“Probably about as ready as my grandfather was when . . .” He shrugged. Whatever the final confrontation, Roger had obviously lost.

Natil looked away as though in shame, and Christopher was surprised by her reaction: she appeared to take some kind of personal responsibility for Roger.

“One of us obsessing on my grandfather is quite sufficient, Natil,” he said. “Let's go see Ruprecht.”

Painstakingly, they worked their way along the route that Natil had . . . what? Felt? Saw? Foretold? Christopher did not know. But though the path—or the pattern—that the harper took was an intricate blend of backtracking and stealthy approach, they drew steadily closer to the tower that contained Ruprecht's bedchamber until, just as a distant bell was ringing lauds, they stood on top of the peninsular wall that joined the tower with the rest of the fortress.

Natil was examining the climb. “Very difficult,” she said.

“Impossible?”

“Nothing is impossible.”

Christopher met her eyes, saw a distinct gleam. “There are only differing degrees of probability.” Natil nodded. “I learn fast,” he said. “They'll have to burn me, too. How do we get up?”

“I will go first,” said the harper. “Then—” She suddenly froze. “O dear Lady . . .”

“What is it?”

Her sight was inward. Patterns again. “Something is happening in the castle. I see men and swords . . .”

“We've been discovered?”

She shook her head. “It is—sweet Lady!—the chancellor. He is going to try to murder the baron.”

Christopher leaned against the tower and passed a hand over his face. “Of all the damned luck. Adria's being threatened by a horde of human locusts, and William's grabbing for power.”

Natil was still staring into empty space. “He has a number of men in his employ, including the tower watch and several captains of the guard.”

“And with enough money, the rest will shift allegiance without complaint.”

She looked sad. “That is indeed what he is hoping.”

Patterns. Shifting patterns. Anything could indeed happen. “If we climb, will we arrive before William?”

“Unless something else happens.”

He chose. “Then let's go. We climb.”

As though impelled by the sudden urgency, Natil swarmed up the side of the tower, her fingers finding invisible handholds, her boots clinging to what seemed to be nonexistent edges. She climbed directly, no longer attempting to stay within the concealment of the moon shadow. Perhaps the patterns told her that caution was unnecessary.

Bracing herself in a window slit, she dropped the rope, and Christopher hauled himself up. His heart pounded at every accidental scrape of his feet, for though the attention of the tower guards might well have been taken up by the imminent coup, it might also have been sharpened by nerves.

Slip. Haul. Slip again. A foothold turned traitor and left him dangling by his hands one hundred and thirty feet above a cobbled courtyard that shone frostily in the near-vertical moonlight. For an instant, he shut his eyes, but then, angered by his fear, he pulled himself up the last twenty feet with nothing more than the strength of his arms.

When he arrived at the window, he heard snoring from within. Natil touched a finger to her lips, eased her feet in through the open window. Christopher followed. It was dark in the bedchamber, but enough moonlight seeped in to allow him to see that the baron and his obedient wife slept in separate beds.

What is this? A monastery? Yvonnet at least shared his sheets with his lover.

But the unorthodox sleeping arrangements simplified Christopher's task considerably, and a minute later, Ruprecht awoke to find Christopher sitting on his chest and a needle-sharp dagger pricking his throat.

“Not a word, messire,” said Christopher. “Not a sound save it be soft and sweet.”

“What is the—” The baron's demand stopped short at a light jab from Christopher's blade. He dropped his voice. “Who are you? What do you want?”

A stirring from the other bed. Ruprecht's wife sat up, cried out.

“Tell her to be quiet,” said Christopher, applying a little more pressure to the knife. His face ashen in the faint light, Ruprecht did as he was told. His wife settled down with a shudder.

“Now,” said Christopher, “to answer your questions. I'm Christopher delAurvre, baron of Aurverelle, the horrible apostate that you refused to see.”

Ruprecht's anger was plain, even in the semi-darkness. “And the murderer of a papal legate.”

“Papal legates shouldn't go about beating up girls,” said Christopher, “but we can talk about that later because I have to answer your other question. Originally, I would have said that this little visit . . .” And he prodded Ruprecht's throat again with the dagger. “. . . was to show you that your fortress isn't as secure as you think. If I can do this, then someone else surely can. The free companies, for instance. I was going to plead with you—yes, God help me, plead—to reconsider your reply to my offer of an alliance.”

“Hmmph! An alliance of heretics and apostates.”

“An alliance of the nobility of Adria,” said Christopher smoothly. “An alliance that will allow us all to save our own miserable skins. But never mind that. I'm not going to plead with you.”

“That's very good,” said Ruprecht. “Pleading will get you nowhere. I don't believe you anyway. Who but a madman would go climbing about a fortress in the middle—” He broke off, the thought obviously occurring to him that the madman in question was sitting on his chest with an unsheathed dagger.

“Quite right,” said Christopher. “A madman. Who else? But enough of that. I'm not here to plead. I must instead tell you that . . .” He looked up. “Natil?”

She was by the door. “They are on the stairs now, my lord.”

Ruprecht started at her voice. “What—?” Another prick silenced him.

“Your chancellor, William, has some ambitions,” said Christopher. “He's tired of being a chancellor. He wants to be a baron. He's on his way up here with a squad of soldiers.”

Ruprecht grappled unsuccessfully with the obvious. “What does he want?”

“Your life, your title, and your lands.”

“That's absurd.” Ruprecht nearly laughed. “Doubtless he's coming to arrest you and put you to the death that you so richly deserve. And I assure you, you'll get no more mercy from me than you gave to poor Etienne.”

“Poor Etienne. Who beat up young women.” Christopher shrugged. “I'm afraid you'll just have to take my word for it.”

Footsteps. A sudden pounding on the door. “My lord baron!” cried William. “A matter of extreme urgency has arisen!”

Despite the dagger, Ruprecht smirked. “Do you want to surrender peacefully, Christopher? Or shall we fight it out? Or maybe you want to try to use me as a hostage?”

Christopher lifted the blade away from Ruprecht's neck. “Why don't you ask him what he wants?”

Ruprecht glared at him. Then: “What is it, William?”

“There is rebellion among the people of the southern parts of the city . . .”

Rebellion,
thought Christopher.
Just the thing to bring Ruprecht to the door in an instant.
He smiled down at Ruprecht. “Invaders, Ruprecht?”

“. . . and we need your leadership.”

Ruprecht was plainly puzzled. “But . . . that's not right. . . .”

Christopher leaned down towards him, his face a hand's breadth from Ruprecht's. He could smell the baron's dinner on his breath. “Will you do me the favor of disproving me to my face? Go ahead and open the door. I'll wait.”

“Your . . . companion . . .”

“She'll wait, too. Just say nothing about us until you determine who's right. If I'm lying, kill us. If not, join my alliance.”

Ruprecht hesitated.

“As a favor,” said Christopher with a smile, though his heart was pounding with the thought of what was on the other side of the door, “to a mad apostate about to meet his just desserts.”

Ruprecht grunted his assent, and Christopher helped him out of bed and into a robe. At the door, the baron of Maris paused, his hand on the bar. “You'll keep your word?”

Christopher and Natil had vanished into the shadows between two huge wardrobes. “If you'll keep yours.”

With a mirthless laugh, Ruprecht unbarred the door and threw it aside. William stood there, surrounded by torchlight and men in mail. “Come in, William,” said the baron. “Tell me more about—”

But his words were cut short, for the chancellor lunged at him. Instinctively, Ruprecht ducked and rolled, and William's sword stroke ended with nothing more than a clang on the flagstone floor. But the soldiers were already surging into the room.

Christopher's voice was loud. “Was I right?”

“Dear God,” cried Ruprecht. “You were!”

Perplexed by the strange voices in the bedroom, William and his men hesitated, thereby giving Ruprecht just enough of an opportunity to smash his shoulder into the stomach of a guard. The man stumbled and fell. Ruprecht seized a stool and knocked a second to the floor, but one of his fellows was stepping in with lifted weapon.

“Swords, Christopher!” Ruprecht shouted. “On the wall behind you!”

Natil was already pressing a blade into Christopher's hand. She was there, and then she was gone, and a moment later, the attacking guard dropped with a glazed expression.

William was lunging again for Ruprecht. Christopher, though, slid in between the two men and caught the thrust on the crosspiece of his sword. He stared into the chancellor's face as though memorizing it. “Ever hear of treason, William?”

William looked a little hysterical as he struggled to free his weapon. Christopher kicked him away, and Ruprecht's wife started to scream as the baron's sword flashed. William sprawled on the floor.

The soldiers, thoroughly demoralized by the sudden shift in fortune, gave up. Natil and Christopher disarmed and bound them face down on the floor while the baron of Maris went to his wife's bed and held her until her panic subsided into fitful sobs.

“O God, O God,” she murmured, “I thought we were safe.”

“So did I, Clarissa,” said her husband.

Christopher tied a last knot, stood up. Ruprecht looked at him somberly. “Is anyone in this castle still loyal to me?”

Natil answered. “The men in the barracks are loyal. William arranged the guard schedules so that he would have complete control by morning.”

Ruprecht blinked at the slender woman's dispassionate statement. “How . . . how do you know all this?”

How did Natil know everything? The patterns. The same patterns that had overwhelmed Vanessa. But Vanessa had learned to control herself, and the fact that Natil moved through the world with ease and assurance was a lightness in Christopher's heart. He wished that the two could meet. “Natil makes a point of knowing a great deal,” he said.

“Can I get a word to them?”

“I will bring them,” said Natil. “Fear not.”

Ruprecht handed her his signet. “This will answer any of their questions,” he said. She nodded and slipped soundlessly out of the window.

Still holding his wife, Ruprecht offered his hand to Christopher. “And as for your question, Messire Christopher, my answer . . .” He smiled wryly. “. . . is yes.”