Maze of Moonlight by Gael Baudino (read with me TXT) 📕

Such a fine time a few years ago! Really, it was not much that Yvonnet wanted. Just a few days . . .

“Martin,” he said, “so nice to see you again! And such a lovely little sparrow my brave eagle has brought with him!”

Lengram, who had followed the baron into the hall, looked away, his lips pressed together.

The dark lad's eyes were now roving about the large, tapestried room as though seeking an escape. But there was no escape. Yvonnet a'Verne always got what he wanted, and the commoners—and, yes, Martin was a commoner: he would be accommodating—were there to provide it.

With an obvious effort, Martin forced himself to stand his ground. “Vanessa of Furze Hamlet is my traveling companion, Baron Yvonnet.”

“Aha!” Yvonnet kept his voice hearty and loud. “Eagles and sparrows, indeed! And is this little fledgling meat for tonight's pot? Or is she expected to provide provender for a lengthy journey?”

But when he turned his immense smile on Vanessa, he was met by eyes that stilled his voice. Dark brown eyes. Huge eyes. Eyes that seemed to see everything at once, that could take in, in a single glance, all of Hypprux, all of Adria, and then, focusing down with a piercing light, could pry into his inmost secrets and lay bare his desires and his vices.

Vanessa was lovely, but she was also alive with a feral gleam that touched her with all the crazed menace of a rabid fox. “It's a' right,” she said. “I know.”

Yvonnet faltered, no longer quite sure whether Martin drooped because of an imminent and forced liaison or because he had been in the company of this . . . changeling . . . for several weeks. “You . . . know . . .”

“The patterns tell me,” she said, nodding. “The patterns a'ways tell me. You can't escape the patterns.”

The courtiers and the servants who were in the hall, perfumed and liveried and accustomed to standing arrogantly before even the mightiest baron of Adria (with the exception, to be sure, of Yvonnet himself), had all unconsciously taken a few steps away from Vanessa. Owl-eyed, isolated in her magic circle of instinctive aversion, the peasant girl blinked and nodded.

“Ah . . .” Yvonnet groped for words. “Ah . . . excellent. Good . . . good taste, Martin.” With difficulty, he dragged himself away from Vanessa's lovely, compelling, terrifying eyes. “I'm . . .” Was she looking at him? He was afraid to find out. He turned his gaze on Martin . . . and kept it there. “I'm very glad you came to visit me. It's been years now, hasn't it?”

Martin was between Vanessa and the baron. “I'm not sure I recall, Yvonnet.”

“Ah! It's Yvonnet again! So nice to be . . .” The baron stole a glance at Vanessa. She was indeed watching him, and her eyes told him that all his obscure and mazed plans were as glass to her. She saw. She knew. “. . . ah . . . to be known as a friend.”

Vanessa was nodding again. “Just ask him, m'lord baron. He'll go wi'out trouble.”

Martin whirled on her. “Vanessa!”

She blinked. “In't tha' wha' you want, Martin?”

Yvonnet sat down in his big chair. Had he been a physically smaller man, he would have been trembling. As it was, he felt weak, dizzy. “I was looking forward to . . . seeing you again, Martin.”

“No, that's not what I want!” Martin was close to tears with fear.

Vanessa was still nodding. “And you still dan know wha' you want, do you?”

She was not mad: that was the problem. Had she been mad, she might well have been the object of laughter and ridicule. But it was painfully apparent that she was lucid, cogent . . . and just as apparent that she saw more than any human being had a right to see.

Yvonnet looked up at the ceiling. “Merciful God,” he murmured. “How is it that something like that can be allowed to run about loose?”

“It's na my time yet, m'lord baron,” said Vanessa. “They'll cam for me when it's time, na before.”

Yvonnet was chilled. She could, he knew, have spoken as openly and as easily about what he wanted from Martin, about what he took from Lengram. “Dam you, woman, be quiet!”

Vanessa nodded knowingly, blinked.

“I . . .” Martin groped for words. “I bring greetings from Baron Paul delMari. He sends his best wishes . . . and hopes for your continued . . . health. . . .”

And Vanessa knew what Martin would do for Yvonnet's continued health. She knew everything. And Martin had brought her straight into the Château. And, at any moment . . .

Yvonnet lifted his head and glared at the assembly in the hall. They probably knew, too, but wealth and power had silenced them. Even the priests, even the bishops. He was baron of Hypprux and could silence them all. But this lovely demon in woman's form saw . . . and spoke. And, yes, she was probably right: as was the case with madmen and prophets and sibyls throughout the ages, if death lay ahead of her, it would, unfortunately, not come soon.

“Get out, all of you,” he shouted. “Get the hell out. You damned dandies and villeins! The sight of you makes me sick! Sergeant, take care of Martin's men. Margot, give this girl a room . . . by herself. Make sure she gets supper.”

Vanessa was staring at a corner of the room as though there were someone standing there. But the corner was empty.

“Get out!”

Martin mustered his courtesy. “Don't be afraid, Vanessa. You'll be safe.”

“Safe?” said the girl. “Nay, I'm na worried abo' being safe. The patterns say it's safe, and you can't change the patterns. No one can.” With obvious repugnance, Margot took the girl's arm, and Vanessa turned those huge brown eyes on her. She smiled with a smile that seemed to go back too far, and Margot all