Maze of Moonlight (9 page)

This was too much for Jerome. “My lord,” he said one day, “forgive my bluntness, but hasn't this gone on long enough?”

Christopher looked up from his loaf of black bread. Deliberately, he crunched through the half-cooked beans and spit out a bit of unhusked spelt. “Long enough?”

“That friar . . .”

“Dom Henri told me two days ago that the chapter house sent that friar packing when they caught him with a girl.”

Jerome murmured an oath and crossed himself.

Christopher munched his bread noisily. “Things haven't changed much since I rode off with the crusaders, have they? Are you going to lecture me now about not going to church and taking the sacraments? You'll have to wait in line. Efram is ahead of you.”

The Franciscan shook his head, folded his arms inside his sleeves. “My lord, it's the rumors. It's being said in the marketplaces of Adria that Aurverelle has no will to maintain itself. It's being said in the castles, too.”

Christopher shrugged. “It's not Aurverelle's will that's lacking.” He laughed without mirth. “It's mine.”

“Yvonnet—”

“—is so concerned about the rebellion in Ypris that he doesn't have time to worry about Aurverelle,” Christopher finished. He noted Jerome's surprised look. “Yes, I've been reading the reports as they come in. You leave them on my bed, I read them. I don't care what they say, but I read them. They're more entertaining than counting stitches in the tapestries or bubbles in the windowpanes.”

Exasperated, Jerome tried once more. “Christopher, your people are
concerned
.”

Christopher put down his bread, struck by the fact that Jerome had been driven to such extremes that he was willing to address his lord by name . . . and with such vehemence. “How so, Fra Jerome?”

Jerome regained his composure. “They love you, my lord, but their morale is dropping quickly. They are your people.”

His people. Christopher did not want anyone to be his people, but he understood. Adria was of no concern to him, neither was the reputation of the estate. The former, as far as he was concerned, could go to hell; the latter was already soiled far beyond his power to add or to detract by his grandfather's excesses and subsequent docile reform—and Christopher still could not say which of the two disturbed him more, or for which he had been trying to make restitution when he heeded the blandishments of his wife and set off with the crusaders of France.

But Jerome had a point. It was to people like those who worked the lands of Aurverelle that he owed his survival during his trek back from the crusade. Peasants—well-off, poor, utterly destitute—had taken him in, fed him bowls of lentil soup and black bread full of beans, given him a place to sleep when the monasteries and abbeys had turned him away.

“Thank you, Jerome,” he said. “I'll think about that.”

And he did. And when spring finally arrived, and when the iron-nosed plows began creeping across damp fields, the farmers and tenants of Aurverelle were surprised to find Christopher out in the fields with them. But not only did he direct the first furrow himself, holding a sword high while the plowman carved a forty-yard slice towards him as smoothly as a man might draw a paintbrush the length of a fence: as April continued and the weather turned fine, Christopher was working—ditching and hedging, pulling basketfuls of mud out of the marshes to repair the causeway and increase the farmland, inspecting the henhouse and the cowshed as diligently as some nobles examined the mews.

By day, he labored alongside his people. At night, he took walks through the town, slipping through the streets at Pytor's side as though the Russian had acquired a slender shadow. But Christopher did not see himself as a shadow: he was, rather, a ghost, a spirit who, like the shades that had once besieged Odysseus, hungered for a taste of mortal blood that would add a sense of substantiality to his spectral existence; and he listened, smelled, and watched hungrily as the estate moved through the spring.

But he was still isolated, disconnected. Yes, he worked in the fields alongside the Hobs and Jakes and Tims of the estate, but they did not need him. If Christopher delAurvre did not exist, Hob, Jake, and Tim would continue their lives without any severe deprivation. Christopher knew that, and he knew also that, as a noble, his business was merely to consume the produce rendered him by Hob, Jake, and Tim. To be sure, he was also supposed to defend them, but he had seen enough French excess and idiocy on the battlefield to recognize the equivocation for what it was. Christopher, baron of Aurverelle, was a useless appendage, and the only difference between himself and the knights who had wasted their lives and the lives of others at Nicopolis was that he happened to know it.

And so the ghost stared at the pit of blood but could not drink, for it had so lost the memory of substance that it could not remember how.

***

Greetings to the baron of Furze, Paul delMari, from Bonnerel d'Aldar, priest of Furze Hamlet: may the Lord God bless His Lordship and keep him and all his household safe.

It is, my lord, with some misgiving that I write to you in order to acquaint you with what I consider to be a grave danger that has afflicted your prosperous and happy estate. As this matter falls more under canon law than under secular, I would, under normal circumstances, refer it directly to Bishop Wenzel of Furze, but in these days of affliction, the usual courses of action have become unclear and worrisome, and therefore I turn to you for advice and judgment.

As I am priest of Furze Hamlet, it is my usually pleasurable duty to have the acquaintance of the thirty or forty souls in my care. Sometimes this duty, though, turns grievous, and indeed it has done so in the matter of Vanessa, daughter of the farmer, Lake.

Vanessa did not grow up as do most children—that is, as the holy apostle said, thinking like a child, speaking like a child, and having the cares of a child—and though I tried for a long time to deny it, I have come to believe that Satan and his minions possess the girl. . . .

***

Paul delMari tossed the letter aside. He could guess what the rest of it said. As he had suspected, there was more to Lake's request than the farmer had been willing to state. Fortunately for Vanessa, she had left the estate two days ago in the company of Martin Osmore. Fortunately for Lake, Paul delMari was baron of Furze.

Paul left the library, climbed the stairs, passed down the hallway. A burst of laughter from the solar told him that Catherine and Isabelle were gossiping. Isabelle doubtless showing off her embroidery while Catherine exhibited whatever new knife or sword she had acquired. Farther down the hall, though . . .

He stopped before a door, swung it open. The room beyond was empty save for a bed, a table and a stool, a wardrobe, and a small writing desk with a scuffed and worn footrest. Martin's room.

And Vanessa had gone off with Martin. Yes, everything did indeed fit together, just like the Elves had always said. Like music. Like a dance. And Vanessa was doubtless playing some part in the melody and footwork that went on all the time, that included all things; and Martin . . .

What part did Martin have? Was he merely a means of conveying Vanessa from one part of Adria to another—a subordinate harmony—or did he serve some other purpose?

“Ah, my son,” said Paul to the absent fosterling. “I would have knighted you, had you asked. But you didn't want that, did you? You were a peasant, you said, and you knew your place. For whatever reason, you had to hide . . . just like me.”

He sighed, closed the door. He would have to think of something to say to Bonnerel, and he would have to be jolly when he said it. Good man, Bonnerel.

***

Etienne of Languedoc was a small, thin man who seemed to possess, despite his fine horse, his jewelry, his sword, his attendants, and the insignia of the Avignon papacy, the demeanor of a tenacious little spider; but Pytor bowed deeply to him anyway. Etienne's ways were doubtless what had allowed him to survive for so long the intricacies of Avignon politics, and in any case the monsignor's party had been waiting outside the gates of Castle Aurverelle for the better part of an hour. The churchman, accustomed as he was to proper receptions and entertainments, was angry.

But he was still outside the gates, and Pytor was about to make him even angrier.

“Master suggests,” said the seneschal, “that you stay at the inn.”

The small crowd of townsfolk who had gathered to stare at the Avignonese when they had first ridden up the street had stayed on to watch, and now the men were beginning to wink and nudge one another, the women to giggle. Stay at the inn! And to the face of a papal legate! Now
that
was the delAurvre style.

Etienne looked puzzled. Christopher's reply was obviously so outlandish that he was at first baffled by it. “At the . . . inn?”

A fine place for a Russian slave! thought Pytor. A May heat wave, the wind kicking up dust devils everywhere, and here he was facing an anthropomorphic spider on a big bay horse. He was glad to have Ranulf of the guard standing directly behind him: a very appropriate honor for the seneschal of a major barony . . . but also, at times like this, a very necessary precaution. “Yes, monsignor,” he said with another bow, “at the inn.”

Finally comprehending, Etienne flared. “Damn you, man! I'm on a mission from Pope Benedict himself! It's only common courtesy that your lord take us in!”

Pytor attempted the placid smile of a Russian peasant. “Master indicated that the inn was perfectly adequate to your needs.”

A flea-infested inn for a flea-infested churchman from a flea-infested whore's knave of a pope,
was what Christopher had actually said—shouted rather—but even though an embassy from Pope Boniface of Rome would have met with exactly the same reception, Pytor was unwilling to convey those precise sentiments to Etienne.

No matter: Etienne was already raging. “His Holiness has sent me personally to speak with Baron Christopher regarding the influence of that heresiarch and excommunicate, Boniface!”

The townsfolk murmured. Pytor bowed with ceremony, but he would not overrule Christopher's orders. “We of Castle Aurverelle are honored, my lord monsignor, by His Holiness' attention and estimation of our influence in Adria. But . . .” He glanced over his shoulder. Old Ranulf, veteran of a thousand battles, had lifted his deeply scarred face and was examining Etienne and his party as though picking a spot for his first thrust. “But I am afraid,” Pytor continued, “that it will have to be the inn for you all.”

Etienne mastered his temper only with difficulty. “And assuming for a moment that I will deign to stay in a common hostel, when will it please Baron Christopher to see me?”

“Master will not see you, my lord monsignor.”

“You mean, he won't see me today?”

“Master will not see you at all.”

“But he must!”

Pytor understood Etienne's bewilderment, but Christopher had kept to his isolation. It was May now, and still no one but staff, officers of the estate, and men of the Aurverelle Guard were entertained in the castle. The fortress was a dreary, empty place. Much (though the comparison pained the seneschal) like its master. “My master—”

“Your master!” shouted Etienne. “Your master this, your master that! I know all about you, Pytor of Medno: you come from Novgorod, and you're nothing but a common serf! How dare Christopher insult me by sending someone like you to speak with me?”

The men in the crowd muttered angrily, and some of them shook their fists at the legate. Pytor blushed at the esteem with which the Aurverelle folk obviously held their seneschal, but he had had enough of Etienne. Courtesy was getting him nowhere, and he lifted his head. “I beg your pardon, monsignor,” he said politely. “I am not a common serf. I am a common slave.”

Someone in the crowd whooped. Etienne flushed with anger. “Well, I'll show you how we treat slaves in Languedoc. . . .” And, rising in his stirrups, reaching for his sword, he urged his horse toward Pytor.

Ranulf, with a murmured “Pardon me, m'lord seneschal,” strode forward and planted himself before Pytor. His hand was hovering just above the grip of his sword, and Pytor knew that the old veteran could draw the weapon and slash simultaneously, dropping all but the best protected and most determined horses even at full gallop.

Confronted now with both an angry knot of townsfolk and a mailed and armed warrior—and therefore with the reminder that more of the same were, doubtless, available to Pytor—Etienne brought his horse to a halt and considered. Pytor guessed his thoughts. True, the monsignor had attendants, and many of them were armed, but a street brawl before a major castle of Adria was risky business, and would do little for Benedict's popularity in the land.

The monsignor's sword went back into its sheath.

“Thank you, Ranulf,” said Pytor.

“No mor'n your due, m'lord seneschal.”

Etienne was chewing his way through courtesy as though it were a block of wood. “Would you please ask your master . . .”

Pytor was beginning to wish that the vagrant monkey that prowled Aurverelle would make an appearance with a suitably rotten piece of fruit, but then he heard movement behind him. Christopher himself was walking quietly out of the castle gate. Clad in simple garments of black and brown, without a sword or even a chain of office, he was indistinguishable from the lowliest servant; but his bearing and the sudden lifting of caps among the people of Aurverelle should have told Etienne that this was no commoner.

The churchman's temper had been aroused: he was beyond such subtleties. “You, boy,” he said to Christopher. “Fetch me your master.”

With a cry, the townsfolk surged forward towards Etienne and his men, obviously intending to deal with the haughty Avignonese as the Flemings had once dealt with the haughty French. But Christopher stopped their advance with a look. “I assure you, Etienne,” he said in the sudden silence, “I have no master.” And he pointed with his thumb at the motto carved above the main gate. Three hundred years ago, the delAurvres had taken it for their own: