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

reason made a practice of going swimming in Malvern River with a feather stuck up his ass, that would have been his own business, but when he insisted upon involving the people of Aurverelle in his idiocy and excesses, he would have to deal with Christopher delAurvre.

For a moment, the baron recalled his grandfather. And had Roger not done exactly what Etienne was doing? What kind of a man was that? But what kind of a man spent the last forty years of his life planting an avenue of peach trees?

Christopher shook his head, finding that, because of his inability to decide what he disliked most about his grandfather—his excess or his reformation—he hated Etienne all the more.

“Might he be leaving soon, Otto?” he said.

“Nay, m'lord. He looks to have made himself at home. Looks to be staying for a long time.”

Jerome nodded. “He's determined to see you, Baron Christopher.”

Christopher laid a hand on the grip of his sword. The family sword, the one with the jewels in the hilt and the relics in the pommel, was lost now somewhere between Nicopolis and Aurverelle, vanished as completely as his faith and his belief. This was a plain sword, without any special meaning; and though Christopher no longer believed that heaven heard anything at all, relics or not, the habit of taking hold of the weapon when registering an oath persisted. “Oh, he'll see me, Jerome. He won't like it, but he'll see me.”

Chapter Eight

The company that arrived from the north was one of the strangest that Otto had ever seen. On the surface, to be sure, there was nothing particularly remarkable about a young man, a young woman, and a few guards. But while the young man was as richly dressed as a lord's son, he bore himself with the humility of one who was dressed in borrowed finery, and he sported two black eyes and numerous bruises. The guards were much like guards everywhere, but the girl was markedly a peasant. She spoke with a thick dairyland accent and gave Otto a chill every time she opened her mouth.

“Aye,” she said as she and the lordling followed Otto up the stairs to look at rooms, “aye . . . this is it. This is the place.”

“The place?” said Otto. He did not want to know: he asked only out of a kind of terrified fascination.

“Vanessa,” Martin said softly. “Please.”

“The place . . .” said Vanessa. And she nodded meaningfully, blinking enormous brown eyes that were filled with too much light. “Ah . . . I understand.”

Otto licked his suddenly dry lips, as uneasy about her as he was about Etienne of Languedoc, who, after two weeks of laying diplomatic siege to Castle Aurverelle, had not yet gotten past the front gate. In accordance with custom, though, the churchman was certainly doing enough damage to the peasantry!

Even now, his voice was drifting up from the common room, shrill and impatient. “He won't? Damn him again! A pox on these delAurvres!” A muffled voice. “What? You don't like my opinion of your baron? Well . . .”

There was a crash and a cry below. Otto winced. Martin Osmore shook his head. “My father has ambitions to live like that,” he said. He grinned, his blackened eyes crinkling up into dark slits. “My mother won't let him. Who is that, anyway?”

“Etienne of Languedoc,” said Otto as he fumbled with his ring of keys. “Now, I'm not disagreeing with Baron Christopher at all, and I won't have you be thinking that I am, but I can't help but wonder whether it might be better if m'lord baron gave the monsignor what he wants.”

“What does he want?”

“He wants to talk to the baron. And m'lord Christopher insulted him and told him to go sleep in the kennel with the dogs! Can you believe that? Baron Christopher is certainly one like his grandfather, surely!”

Martin looked alarmed. “His grandfather? The one who hanged travelers in Malvern?”

“Well . . . not quite like his grandfather, perhaps. . . .” Otto found the key, opened the door. “Now, here you are, m'lord. A sitting room with a big window, and separate bedrooms.” Otto still could not figure it out: separate bedrooms? And a lord and a peasant traveling together?

Martin was nodding. He removed his gloves, and Otto could see rope burns on his wrists. He shuddered, made the mistake of looking at Vanessa, was transfixed by a pair of eyes that harrowed him on the spot.

“Fine, fine,” Martin was saying.

“I'm . . . glad m'lord is pleased.”

“Don't call me lord,” said Martin. “I'm a commoner. I'll always be a commoner. Master Martin is good enough for me.”

Awash in confusion, Otto bowed. Below, Etienne was still shouting abuse, but a footstep in the hall made them all turn.

A liveried servant was approaching, his tunic figured with the papal crest. He ignored Otto, bowed dismissively to Martin, smiled at Vanessa . . . and appeared shaken when Vanessa stared back at him. “Ah . . .”

“Speak up, my man,” said Martin. The bruises on his face gave him the grotesque look of a jester.

The servant struggled back to composure. “Mistress,” he said to Vanessa, keeping his eyes averted, “my master, Monsignor Etienne of Languedoc, could not help but note your great beauty and noble bearing. He greatly desires you r acquaintance and craves your company.”

Otto shook his head, frustrated. He wished that Baron Christopher would do something. Etienne's treatment of the servants and the girls was bad enough, but now the churchman seemed bent on the other patrons.

“Amazing,” said Martin. “He's not even going to ask if she's married.”

But Vanessa turned to him with those enormous eyes. “But, Martin, Yvonnet didn't care if you were married, either.”

Martin looked away quickly. Otto suppressed a profound desire to flee.

Etienne's servant was glaring at Martin. “Well, is she?”

Vanessa answered . . . in her own way. “He can't ha' me,” she said. “Na tonight. No one can ha' me tonight. It's na